Rising production star National Resilience is adding another major medical center to its constellation of partners. This time, the Rahul Singhvi-helmed company is teaming up on biomanufacturing with Mayo Clinic to crank out drugs for complex and rare diseases.
The partners will home in specifically on biologics derived from sources like cells, blood, enzymes, tissues, genes or genetically engineered cells, Resilience said in a release.
The move comes shortly after the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center tapped Resilience for a similar mission tied to cancer cell therapies. Together, the partners are building out the 60,000-square-foot Cell Therapy Manufacturing Center in Houston where workers will initially focus on process and analytical development plus early- and clinical-stage manufacturing, MD Anderson said in June.
Also in June, Resilience said it had enriched itself with more than $1 billion since August 2021. It announced a $625 million series D financing round and revealed a previously undisclosed $600 million series C that completed last year.
As for Resilience’s latest biomanufacturing tie-up, the company is “embedding” itself at Mayo’s Center for Regenerative Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. There, Resilience will establish entrenched process and analytical development labs plus labs for quality control, the manufacturer said.
“This 'embedded' approach allows for closer proximity and collaboration to jointly develop and progress cell therapies and other advanced modalities into clinical care,” according to the release.
The partners hope the move will entice “third-party biotech companies interested in sponsoring clinical trials for new therapeutics” as well as teaming up on process and analytical development.
Further, Resilience and Mayo’s accord “seeks to advance biologic discoveries toward early stage clinical trials,” the manufacturer added.
Since its November 2020 debut, Resilience has been on an expansion spree, amassing 11 facilities across North America and more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing space.
Before 2022 is out, Resilience aims to chart further capacity expansions and manufacturing firepower upgrades “with projects underway at several existing sites across all modalities,” the company added.
When the company uncloaked in fall of 2020, Resilience had raised more than $800 million.
The company is led by former Novavax CEO and COO of Takeda vaccines Singhvi. Celgene and Sarepta Therapeutics vet Sandy Mahatme serves as president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, and former Juno Therapeutics and Roche/Genentech EVP Patrick Yang, Ph.D., is Resilience's vice chairman. The company also counts former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., among its founding board of directors.