AGC (AGC Inc.; Headquarters: Tokyo; President: Yoshinori Hirai), a world-leading manufacturer of glass, chemicals, and high-tech materials, has announced that its biopharmaceutical CDMO^* subsidiary, AGC Biologics (Headquarters: United States), is expanding its Heidelberg facility to create capacity for messenger RNA (mRNA) projects, and additional production capacity for plasmid-DNA (pDNA), which one of its uses is as material for mRNA production. This expansion will enable AGC Biologics to better service the needs of the growing pDNA and mRNA global markets. The facility's new capabilities will be fully operational in around mid-2023.

mRNA, now well known for its use in COVID-19 vaccines, is a drug modality that is being developed by various therapeutic developers, and its demand is expected to increase globally for both vaccines and other applications. AGC Biologics will leverage its technology and experience, especially the existing established commercial pDNA capabilities at the Heidelberg site, to begin this service.

In addition to this expansion, AGC Biologics is expanding its cell and gene therapy capacity at the Milan site and has acquired a cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility in Longmont, Colorado, U.S., as previously announced. Through these investments, AGC Biologics is accelerating its growth as one of the few CDMOs in the world that can provide integrated end-to-end services for the manufacture of cell and gene therapies.

Under its AGC plus 2.0 management policy, AGC Group has positioned its Life Science business as one of its strategic businesses. The Group has been expanding its business through multiple acquisitions and capital investments for its CDMO services using mammalian cells and microorganisms, as well as in synthetic pharmaceutical and agrochemical services. Furthermore in 2020, the Group expanded the scope of its CDMO business into the rapidly growing field of cell and gene therapy. The sales target for the Group’s Life Science business is 200 billion yen or more for 2025. The AGC Group will work to provide its customers in each region with globally unified, high-quality services, contributing to the well-being of patients and the wider society as a whole.