UCB expanding gene therapy facilities with 200 million-euro investment

Belgium’s largest drugmaker, UCB (Euronext: UCB), today announced it will build an innovative and environmentally sustainable gene therapy process development and clinical manufacturing facility on their high-tech campus in Braine l’Alleud, Wallonia, Belgium.

The new facility, representing an investment of more than 200 million euros ($218 million) over the coming years, is expected to be operational in 2024. Construction is due to start in the second quarter of 2022.

Recent years has seen a significant evolution in the gene therapy field and today it’s regarded as an exciting modality that can drive a fundamental change in how diseases are treated, enabling a move from treating symptoms to disease modification and eventually towards a cure in defined patient populations. But producing viral vectors (the delivery vehicles of gene therapies) remains challenging due to currently highly inefficient manufacturing processes, poorly characterized products, and scarce high-cost third party development and manufacturing capacity. So internal process and analytical development capabilities and seamless and flexible clinical manufacturing, are being recognized as critical success factors in the development of gene therapies.