Intellia to Build Waltham Manufacturing Facility for its CRISPR-based Therapies

Cambridge-based Intellia Therapeutics, a genome editing company focused on developing curative therapies leveraging CRISPR-based technologies, plans to develop a 140,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Waltham to support the manufacturing of key components for its CRISPR-based investigational therapies. “This new facility is a strategic investment, which in combination with existing capabilities and partnerships, will provide us with significant manufacturing capacity and accelerate the clinical development and future commercial production for our therapeutic candidates,” said Intellia Chief Technical Officer Eliana Clark.

The new manufacturing facility will be GMP compliant and support both the preclinical through commercial supply upon regulatory approval for key components of Intellia’s CRISPR-based therapies. Additionally, this new facility will be able to provide capacity and capabilities in support of Intellia’s expanding pipeline and commercial readiness. It will be constructed and managed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities and is expected to be operational in 2024. Intellia CFO Glenn Goddard commented, “Choosing a long-term lease agreement provides Intellia with greater manufacturing flexibility and only a modest financial upfront requirement compared with building our own facility from the ground up. We look forward to working with Alexandria as they build this new facility.”

To fully realize the potential of CRISPR-based technologies, Intellia is pursuing two primary approaches. The company’s in vivo programs use intravenously administered CRISPR as the therapy, in which proprietary delivery technology enables highly precise editing of disease-causing genes directly within specific target tissues. Intellia’s ex vivo programs use CRISPR to create the therapy by using engineered human cells to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. (Source: Intellia Therapeutics Website, 23 February, 2022)