Thursday, June 9, 2011

WPI biomanufacturing center partners with Abbott, Bristol-Myers, Shire HGT

By Rodney H. Brown

Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s under-construction Biomanufacturing Education and Training Center has signed a trio of big life sciences corporate names as its inaugural partners – Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Shire Human Genetic Therapies.

The BETC is planned for a four-story building now under construction at Gateway Park. The center is funded in part by a $2.2 million grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and will feature a biomanufacturing pilot plant for hands-on training and education of what is anticipated to be a much-needed “workforce needed to produce medicines and research compounds using engineered living cells,” also called biopharmaceuticals. WPI describes biopharmaceuticals as the fastest-growing segment of the therapeutics industry.

Because workers in the biopharmaceuticals segment would be handling medicines produced by living cells, a high level of specific training is required. That type of trained workforce doesn’t exist in large numbers in the Northeast right now, WPI officials said. Those workers will be trained at BETC in a 10,000-square-foot commercial-scale pilot plant, officials said.

In February, WPI announced that the building housing the BETC was scheduled for an April groundbreaking. The new building, estimated at costing $30 million, is expected to be LEED certified and include laboratory, academic and office space. WPI noted in a press release that about 120 construction jobs and 140 permanent jobs will be created from the new facility.