Resilience CDMO deal sees AstraZeneca offload Ohio fill/finish site

AstraZeneca will gain access to Resilience’s biomanufacturing services, while its drug product plant in West Chester will be incorporated within the CDMO’s network.

AstraZeneca becomes the latest customer for National Resilience, gaining access to the contract development and manufacturing organization’s (CDMO’s) full network offering end-to-end capabilities.

Concurrently, the Anglo-Swedish drug giant will transfer its 580,000 square-foot facility in West Chester to Resilience, which will take on the 500+ staff members and has pledged to invest in the site following the closing of the deal, expected early 2023.

Resilience will add the AZ site in West Chester, Ohio to its burgeoning network. Image: Google/Miguel Gonzalez

Financials have not been divulged.

“As part of our long-term strategy to ensure our global supply network remains fit for the future, we are continuously optimizing our manufacturing footprint to meet the evolving needs of our pipeline and portfolio,” said Andrew Wirths, SVP of Americas Supply Region at AstraZeneca.

“The transfer of our West Chester site to Resilience will enable the continued supply of AstraZeneca medicines to patients, as well as the continued employment for more than 500 people working at the West Chester site. I’m encouraged by Resilience’s plans to transform the site into their drug product center of excellence.”

The West Chester site was added to AstraZeneca’s production network in 2013 through the $2.7 billion acquisition of Bristol Myer Squibb’s diabetes business. Bristol Myers Squibb had added the plant the year prior through its $5.3 billion acquisition of Amylin Pharmaceuticals.

For intended new owner Resilience, West Chester brings aseptic filling, inspection, packaging, labelling, and cold-chain operations – as well as a virtual reality training center – to an ever-growing biomanufacturing network. The site will continue to manufacture select AstraZeneca medicines as part of a multi-year supply agreement with Resilience.

The CDMO, which launched in November 2019  with ambitions to provide “new, better, faster ways” to manufacture advanced therapies, has quickly grown its production capacity across a wide range of modalities through numerous asset acquisitions across North America, including buying Sanofi-Genzyme’s Boston, Massachusetts plant, Bluebird Bio’s Durham, North Carolina site, and Therapure’s Ontario, Canada facility.

According to CEO Rahul Singhvi, this latest facility addition and contract with AstraZeneca “is an exciting step toward our mission of broadening patient access to complex medicines and protecting domestic biopharmaceutical supply chains.”

He added: “We envision the West Chester site as our global center of excellence for commercial drug product manufacturing that will produce a wide range of life-saving medicines.”