On the defense: Resilience bags $410m US Gov contract

The retrospective financing will bolster National Resilience’s US production network and forms part of the US Department of Defense’s Biomanufacturing Strategy.

The $410 million long-term funding agreement with the US Department of Defense (DoD), in collaboration with the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), aims to support Resilience’s capabilities and strengthen domestic bioproduction.

“The loan financing will be used to help expand and modernize the US’s biomanufacturing capacity and capabilities for biologics, vaccines, and nucleic acids – therapeutic modalities and medical countermeasures which have the potential to support a broad range of disease indications for both government and commercial customer needs,” a Resilience spokesperson told BioProcess Insider.

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“This is retrospective financing being used to cover select capital investments within our manufacturing network within the United States that will enable both government and commercial customer needs.”

Since its inception in November 2020 through the raising of $800 million, the advanced therapy-focused contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) has rapidly bult up its North American network through a series of acquisitions and investments.

However, the DOD financing follows a series of cost-cutting measures put in place by the firm. Last month, Resilience announced the sale and subsequent lease-back of its Marlborough, Massachusetts facility. Days later, the firm cut 213 jobs at its Allston, Massachusetts site following the ending of its manufacturing contract with former owner Sanofi.

Commentators on social media were quick to ask how the DOD win will impact the 213 jobs cut and whether those people will have a chance to be repurposed. We posed this to Resilience:

“Reducing our operations in Allston is due to balancing customer demand across our various plants. We are actively seeking the right set of customers for the newly established capabilities at this site, which include a new state of the art biologics suite,” we were told.

“So while we continue to invest in this site as an important node within our network, we will hire according to need aligned to our client responsibilities.”

The spokesperson reiterated the DOD contract focuses on the “retrospective financing being used to cover select capital investments within our manufacturing network. We have fiduciary responsibility to our equity investors and financing partners.”

DOD

The $410 million deal is aligned to the DOD’s Biomanufacturing Strategy, released last week.

The 10-page document maps out efforts by the government department to establish DoD-focused biomanufacturing capabilities and technologies, and create a self-sustaining domestic biomanufacturing ecosystem.

It is also informed by President Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy issued last year, which has already seen the DOD invest around $1.2 billion in biomanufacturing investments.

“The National Defense Strategy directs us to seed opportunities in biotechnology as part of our broader responsibility to ensure our enduring technological advantage, and the Department of Defense Biomanufacturing Strategy will help guide our efforts in this critical technology field,” said Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering.

“The strategy’s principles will define the path we must take to not just develop advanced technologies, but turn them into advanced capabilities that meet national security needs.”