Still riding the pandemic wave, microfiltration and single-use systems manufacturer Meissner is heading east to Georgia’s Marigold Capital.
The manufacturing supplies company is injecting $250 million into a new facility in Winterville, located in Athens-Clarke County in Georgia, about 80 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. It aims to kick off operations there in early 2026.
In tandem with the plant build-out, Meissner expects to create more than 1,700 jobs over the next eight years. The company will be looking for talent across a spectrum of roles including technicians, scientists and engineers as well as information technology and administrative positions.
Meissner furnishes the pharmaceutical and biotech industries with products like filters and housings, integrity test instruments and single-use biocontainers. Its portfolio fuels both development and manufacture of critical meds in oncology, cardiology and immunology. More recently, the company raised its profile during the COVID-19 pandemic when it pitched in resources to help develop, produce and deploy “numerous” therapeutics and vaccines.
That work was recognized—and rewarded—by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) back in 2021, when the medical countermeasures agency handed Meissner a $13.4 million contract to expand its production capacity for COVID-critical manufacturing products in California.
The new plant will mark Meissner’s second U.S. campus, joining the company’s production site and headquarters in Camarillo, California. The company also operates a European manufacturing campus in Castlebar, Ireland.
The latest project, set to wrap up in phases, will more than double Meissner’s U.S. production footprint, according to a press release issued by the state of Georgia. The campus will contain multiple buildings that house amenities like cleanrooms, labs, research and development sites and offices.
Aside from its hiring push, Meissner plans to link up with the University System of Georgia and the Technical College System of Georgia to explore internships and other collaboration opportunities.
Meissner pitches itself as one of the world’s biggest privately held companies in the bioprocessing sphere. At the time of the BARDA funding in 2021, Meissner said it would match BARDA’s contract with its own “significant investment” in its Camarillo plant, where it telegraphed additional cleanroom and manufacturing space.
“While we have seen increased demand on the basis of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, our products are also a key piece in the development and manufacture of other lifesaving medicines so it’s critical that we are able to support all of our customers through this period and in the future,” Max Blomberg, Meissners’ executive director of operations, said at the time, as quoted by Pharmaceutical Online.