Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical opened its new gene therapy manufacturing facility in Bedford, MA. The company reports that it has a large and diverse clinical pipeline of late-stage gene therapies for the potential treatment of rare genetic conditions.
The new facility will enable Ultragenyx to produce gene therapy treatments leveraging its Pinnacle PCLTM (producer cell line) manufacturing platform, which enables greater efficiency in producing adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapies with improved product quality and yield, lower cost, and increased speed of production, according to Dennis Huang, chief technical operations officer and executive VP for gene therapy research and development.
“Through this facility, Ultragenyx will develop and produce gene therapy treatments at greater scale than previously possible, which we believe will make these rare disease medicines more accessible to the people who need them,” he said.
Ultragenyx recently finished construction of the 110,000-ft2 gene therapy manufacturing facility on a 10.7-acre site in Bedford, which was selected due to its proximity to Ultragenyx’s research and development operations in the Greater Boston area. The company plans to hire 120 employees to staff the facility from a range of skill levels and backgrounds. Ultragenyx currently employs more than 350 people in Massachusetts across its sites in Bedford, Woburn, and Cambridge.
