Two new East Coast gene therapy manufacturing facilities opened for business this past quarter. On June 8, Astellas Pharma opened a 135,000-square-foot facility in Sanford, North Carolina. The facility, which was begun in late 2019 by Audentes Therapeutics before it was acquired by Astellas in a $3 billion deal, will provide clinical- and commercial-scale manufacturing capabilities for Astellas’s pipeline of adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapies. The site is expected to create 200 new jobs. One day later, REGENXBIO launched its own gene therapy manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The state-of-the-art facility will allow the company to increase production of NAV Technology-based AAV vectors at scales up to 2,000 liters.

Moderna has agreed to a deal with the UK government to build the country’s first research and manufacturing facility dedicated to the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 variants and other respiratory illnesses. Construction of the mRNA Innovation and Technology Centre is expected to begin this year, with the first mRNA vaccines produced in the UK due in 2025. Moderna also said it will expand its clinical trials in the UK.

Also in the UK, Brentford-based GSK opened a new $110 million ‘smart’ manufacturing plant in Barnard Castle. The fully automated facility is expected to streamline the manufacturing process, decrease waste, and hasten the launch of new medicines.

Germany’s Merck KGaA announced its largest investment in a single life-science manufacturing site, saying it will spend $470 million to build a new manufacturing facility and increase membrane manufacturing capacity in Cork, Ireland. The two sites in Ireland aim to create more than 370 permanent jobs by the end of 2027.

Finally, Sana Biotechnology, which raised $588 million in its IPO last year, has announced plans for a new manufacturing site in Bothell, Washington. The new 80,000-square-foot facility will support the company’s multiple cell and gene therapy candidates.

Advertised biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector jobs in the job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology decreased slightly in the second quarter of 2022 (Tables 1 and 2) compared with the previous quarter (Nat. Biotechnol. 40, 801, 2022).

Table 1 Who’s hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies
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Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies
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