WuXi STA, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), announced it will open a new pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Middletown, Delaware in 2024, bringing 500 new jobs to the region by 2026. Wuxi’s selection of Greater Philadelphia was the result of a competitive, year-long search process supported directly by Select Greater Philadelphia.

According to the announcement, subsequent phases of WuXi STA’s project plan could further expand the Middletown campus, located at 1091 Industrial Drive at the Middletown Business Center, growing the workforce to more than 1,000 employees. Among the jobs the new development will support are manufacturing operators, lab technicians, quality assurance and quality control staff, scientists and management, administrative personnel, and warehouse support staff.

The June 28 announcement was made in partnership with Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP), a public-private economic development agency. The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia’s Select Greater Philadelphia Council, which works to attract businesses to the 11-county region, including New Castle County in Delaware where WuXi STA will locate, was instrumental in managing the site selection process in collaboration with DPP.

“WuXi STA is excited to join Delaware’s growing healthcare community and establish Middletown as the home of our new state-of-the-art pharmaceutical clinical and commercial manufacturing complex,” said Minzhang Chen, Ph.D., CEO of WuXi STA. “Delaware’s highly trained pharmaceutical manufacturing workforce and proximity to many of our customers provide tremendous opportunities to support the region’s economic growth and efforts to advance pharmaceutical development and manufacturing. We are grateful to Delaware and Middletown for their leadership in fostering a strong entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem, and we look forward to collaborating to deliver groundbreaking treatments for patients.”

In the announcement, WuXi STA noted: “There is growing industry and local customer demand for innovative technologies to help companies advance pharmaceutical discovery and development throughout the pre-clinical, clinical and manufacturing pipelines. As an industry-leading global CDMO, WuXi STA provides customers with one-stop manufacturing services for both drug substance and drug product, including oral and injectable dosage forms. The new facility in Middletown will feature space for testing laboratories; manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); and manufacture and packaging of solid dosage pharmaceutical products and sterile products.’”

WuXi STA is a subsidiary of WuXi AppTec, which opened a facility at The Navy Yard in Philadelphia in 2014, strengthening R&D production services of CAR-T therapies and other immunotherapies. In 2017, WuXi AppTec established WuXi Advanced Therapies at the Navy Yard site, a contract testing, development and manufacturing organization (CTDMO) that offers integrated platforms to transform the development, testing, manufacturing, and commercialization of cell, gene, and other advanced biopharmaceuticals. The company further expanded its Philadelphia campus in 2020 with a new state-of-the-art testing laboratory.

“We are delighted that WuXi STA has selected our 11-county region for its expansion and will be locating its new pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in New Castle County, Delaware,” said Meghan Kelly, director, Business Attraction, Expansion & Life Sciences Initiatives for Select Greater Philadelphia Council. “Throughout the site selection process, our region showed the exceptional collaboration that comprises Greater Philadelphia’s life sciences community. We extend a warm welcome to WuXi STA and its employees and look forward to working together.”