Arranta Bio breaks ground on Massachusetts microbiome facility

Arranta Bio, a microbiome contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), revealed the addition of a 130,000-square-foot facility in Boxborough, MA, alongside its current facilities in Watertown, MA and Gainesville, FL—this brings Arranta’s total manufacturing capacity to over 230,000 square feet. The CDMO closed an oversubscribed Series B equity financing from its current investors to fund the expansion.

The Boxborough site will be built in phases, and work on the first two phases has commenced. Total investment in Boxborough is expected to exceed $150 million, and with the first phases of construction underway, start-up of GMP (good manufacturing practice) suites is expected by early 2022. The facility will employ a staff of more than 250 people, and is designed to support clients, including a dedicated lab and GMP capacity that can provide commercial products or other products for a client.

The GMP manufacturing suites, Arranta says, are designed to be flexible in scale, size and design to accommodate client and product-specific processing requirements for both drug substance and finished drug product. Initial multi-client capacity will include up to multiple 2,000L scale single-use bioreactors for anaerobic bacteria, or 1,000L scale single-use fermenters for aerobic bacteria and fully automated drug product manufacturing. Arranta also plans to add secondary packaging and labeling capabilities at the location.