As Charlottetown-based drug manufacturer BIOVECTRA launches its new, $90 million biomanufacturing facility, CEO Oliver Technow says expansion of its production capacity is an important part of its plans to stay internationally competitive.

BIOVECTRA was the only Atlantic Canadian company last year to crack Ontario-based Communitech’s inaugural Team True North list of startups that are on track to reach $1 billion in annual revenue by 2030. Speaking at Entrevestor Live last week, Technow said BIOVECTRA has no concrete plans for how it will reach that benchmark, but that expanding its production capacity to ensure it is not caught flat-footed by large orders will be key to its growth.

To qualify as one of the 35 Team True North members, businesses had to show growth metrics comparable to the top one percent of the fastest growing startups worldwide. Technow jokingly said he was jealous of Communitech’s optimism, but described the award as a useful outside validation of his team’s efforts. He added $1 billion in revenue could eventually be a realistic possibility for BIOVECTRA.

“You have to remain at the cutting edge of technology, in other words what is in high demand,” he said. “Secondly, you have to have capacity in order to accommodate what your clients actually need in order to bring product to global marketplaces.

“Companies will walk away from you. That actually happens quite a bit in my sector. It takes you up to six, seven years to rebuild the portfolio, the pipeline of companies that are interested in your services. So what does that mean? You have to continue to invest.”

BIOVECTRA, which was sold to Miami-based private equity firm H.I.G. Capital for US$250 million in 2019, provides contract drug development and production services to other businesses. The company on Friday announced it had opened its latest Charlottetown facility, which started just 18 months ago. The plant is designed to produce a mammoth 70 million doses per year of mRNA vaccines, such as those used to prevent COVID-19, making it the first such factory in Canada.

The new plant will require 125 full-time staff to operate, along with as many as 225 co-op students, and bring BIOVECTRA’s total capacity to more than 280,000 square feet of manufacturing space across Atlantic Canada.

At the time of its announcement, the project was budgeted to cost just under $77 million, with the federal government paying $39.8 million, the Prince Edward Island government $10 million, and BIOVECTRA the remaining balance.

The facility will be joined in 2024 by a Moderna plant in Laval, Quebec, that is being created under a 10-year deal between the Massachusetts pharmaceutical giant and the federal government.

Technow said the new infrastructure is part of a larger move by BIOVECTRA to focus on biologics -- pharmaceutical products that are derived from natural sources and represent the fastest-growing segment of the industry internationally. Ireland's Grand View Research projects the market could reach almost US$400 billion by 2025.

Last month, BIOVECTRA even inked a deal with pharma startup Acuitas to use the Vancouver-based company’s system for delivering vaccines and other medications via miniscule particles of lipids, which are a class of organic compounds that includes substances like fats and waxes.

“We have invested over the last four years a little more than US$160 million,” Technow told moderator Doris Grant, vice-president of business development at Life Sciences Nova Scotia. “Our business is extremely investment heavy. We need to continue to grow facilities and capacity in order to stay competitive.

“Our journey from a company that was roughly focused on … a more balanced contribution of manufacturing and R&D, we are now very heavily tilted toward the biological side of things. Simply put, of the top ten most important, most profitable pharmaceutical products in the world, seven or eight of them are based on biologics."