CordenPharma to Boost Lipid Manufacturing Capabilities for mRNA Vaccine Production

CordenPharma, a full-service contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), excipients, drug products and packaging services, is launching an investment project that will increase its lipid manufacturing capacity at its CordenPharma Chenôve plant, located near Dijon, France. This decision—the company says—comes as a result of the demand to supply patients with life-enhancing or life-saving medicines that are based on mRNA technology.

After completing its first request to support rapid COVID-19 medicine production in 2020, the French government launched a second request for another “Capacity Building” program known as AMI (Appel à Manifestation d’Intérêt) in February 2021 to support COVID-19 research & development projects in France. CordenPharma Chenôve submitted an accelerated program dossier to increase local lipids manufacturing capacity using green technologies—the CDMO’s Chenôve facility was then selected by the French government as one of 25 AMI projects to be awarded a total investment of about $637 million.

As a result of this financial commitment, CordenPharma Chenôve was able to accelerate its manufacturing growth for the production of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) enabling ingredients, such as highly pure lipids, which are involved in the development of mRNA vaccines.

Phase 1 of the investment program, which was recently completed, includes the revamp of an R&D laboratory and the addition of several analytical instruments, among its components.

The investment’s second phase of the investment has now commenced, featuring the design and construction of a larger good manufacturing practice (GMP) lipid chemistry facility at CordenPharma Chenôve. The CDMO anticipates it will be up and running by the end of 2022.