Arranta Bio, a Recipharm company and CDMO supporting advanced therapies, has doubled capacity at its Watertown, MA facility for process development services supporting RNA therapeutics.

This major development comes less than a year after the acquisition of Arranta Bio by Recipharm, demonstrating Recipharm’s continued focus on the advanced therapeutics market.

The expansion includes the fit out of approximately 2,000 ft² of state-of-the-art laboratory space with flexible, modular small scale and pilot scale equipment to enable rapid development and scale up to GMP manufacturing.

The Watertown facility is an 80,000-ft. 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.

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 and successfully advancing life-changing medicine to patients.”

In a statement, the company said that it continues to invest in expanding and enhancing its capabilities and commercial-ready facilities.

Recipharm completed the acquisition of Arranta in April 2022, building on its presence in the biologics market, with a particular focus on drug substance manufacturing of novel ATMPs.