Having announced the deal earlier this year, the company has now finalized the acquisition of the facility from Novartis Gene Therapies. The Longmont site will give AGC Biologics 622,000 square feet of operations and office space primarily planned for CGT activities. The facility – located just 16 miles from AGC’s large-scale stainless-steel mammalian facility in Boulder - is due to start full-scale operations by Q4 2021.
The acquisition allows AGC Biologics to expand its cell and gene therapy footprint to the US; as well as to continue rapidly expanding its process development and GMP capacity to meet both early and late clinical/commercial customer needs.
In 2020 it announced the €1m ($1.18m) expansion of its plasmid DNA (pDNA) Center of Excellence in Heidelberg, Germany: meeting a growing need for process development and manufacturing for pDNA. In March this year, it set out plans for the expansion of its Cell and Gene Therapy Center of Excellence in Milan, to increase capacities and implement viral vector suspension capabilities.
“The Longmont facility is just one of the company-wide expansion initiatives that AGC Biologics has been working on,” said AGC Biologics CEO Patricio Massera. “With our ongoing global expansion, we look forward to continuing to help our partners bring life-saving treatments to the market.”
The company’s global network spans the US, Europe and Asia: with cGMP-compliant facilities in Seattle, Washington; Boulder, Colorado; Copenhagen, Denmark; Heidelberg, Germany; Milan, Italy; and Chiba, Japan.