Recipharm’s Arranta Bio expands RNA process development capacity by 50%

09-Mar-2023 - Last updated on 09-Mar-2023 at 15:13 GMT

Arranta Bio, a Recipharm company, has doubled capacity at its Massachusetts facility for process development services supporting RNA therapeutics.

The development comes less than a year after the acquisition of Arranta Bio by Recipharm.

The CDMO’s Watertown facility, which is located in the Greater Boson area, is an 80,000 sq. ft (7432.2 sq. m) commercial-ready GMP manufacturing facility with Grade C production suites suitable for the end-to-end production of mRNA, lipid nanoparticle formulation, and automated sterile fill finish into vials or syringes within a gloveless, robotic isolator. The facility has capabilities for process and analytical development and GMP manufacturing for drug substance and drug product.

The expansion includes the fit out of approximately 2,000 sq ft laboratory space with flexible, modular small scale and pilot scale equipment to enable rapid development and scale up to GMP manufacturing, reported the organization.

David Stevens, CEO of Arranta Bio, said: “The opening of our additional development laboratory space for RNA technologies at Watertown means we are well positioned to help our clients quickly and effectively scale up processes for successful GMP manufacturing. Arranta’s ability to support best-in-class process development prior to GMP is critically important in achieving the objective of reducing the amount of time to get into the clinic."

Acquisition

Recipharm completed the acquisition of Arranta in April 2022, while simulatenously finalizing the deal to acquire virotherapy CDMO, Vibalogics; it envisaged that both businesses would help it build its presence in the biologics market, with a particular focus on drug substance manufacturing of novel advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs).

The deals followed Recipharm’s entry into biologics earlier that year, with the acquisition of Portuguese company, GenIbet, a specialist in the manufacture of biological clinical material.

The Stockholm headquarted organization operates development and manufacturing facilities in France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US.