AbCellera Biologics announced a $701-million federal and British Columbia-backed infrastructure project Wednesday that will increase the overall scope of a manufacturing plant, which has been in the works since 2020, to facilitate clinical trials and help deliver antibody medicines to patients.
AbCellera senior vice-president Murray McCutcheon said the company's expansion project, which is described as a biotech campus, will be able to take research on antibody therapies from early ideas through to clinical trials. AbCellera partnered with drug giant Eli Lilly in 2020 to develop Bamlanivimab, which was authorized for use less than a year after the first case of COVID-19 was discovered.The new manufacturing plant is under construction now and is set to be producing antibody therapies for clinical trials starting next year.
"This means new training for British Columbians, this investment today," he said. "It means access to frontline treatment through clinical trials. It means that when intellectual property is developed through research here that the financial benefits stay in our province and in our country."