24-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Bionova Scientific commits to more Woodlands buildings, hiring
The Fremont, California-based contract development and manufacturing organization is planning another facility north of Houston.
Story Highlights Bionova Scientific is planning a second, 100,000-square-foot facility in The Woodlands by 2026.
The first building, which took six months of construction, is nearly ready for its ribbon-cutting.
Company expects to hire 200 workers for plasmid DNA manufacturing.
Bionova Scientific is gearing up for a major expansion in The Woodlands as its first Houston-area facility approaches full capacity this summer.
Bionova Chief Scientific Officer Jesse McCool said the Fremont, California-based contract development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO, is planning a second, 100,000-square-foot building at 2600 Research Forest Drive, which is set to be complete in 2026. The company also plans to hire 200 workers, a significant jump from previously reported figures.
Bionova's first facility is in an existing building in The Woodlands' rapidly growing life sciences ecosystem, but McCool confirmed the second would be built from the ground up. Chicago-based Perkins&Will is the design firm for the second project, and $5 million in 'detailed engineering work' has already been completed.
'Our first facility covers all the [plasmid DNA] manufacturing services we offer, but only up to a certain scale; it covers pre-clinical and early clinical orders,' McCool told the Houston Business Journal in an exclusive interview. 'We have a path to scalability; we have a line of sight to the larger facility, which is going to be right next door.'
The company plans to manufacture all three grades of plasmid DNA: research, high quality and Good Manufacturing Practice grade. The DNA can be used in various cell and gene therapy applications depending on the grade.
Bionova has already opened some phases of the first building at 2635 Technology Forest Drive ahead of a planned ribbon-cutting in May. The company expects to receive final approval of its GMP manufacturing space in July.
The Woodlands-based Aventus Development led the first project, which took six months of construction, according to McCool.
The other major expansion target for Bionova in Houston is a 200-person biopharma workforce. McCool said that the first building will have capacity for around 55 workers; the remainder would go into the second building. Of that workforce, McCool estimates around 60% wouldn't need four-year degrees.
"That makes this type of business attractive to communities because it helps prop up a part of the community that doesn't have access to higher-paying jobs," he said.
The planned expansion would be a significant step up from what Bionova previously disclosed in tax abatement applications to Montgomery County and The Woodlands.
In its February 2024 application for Montgomery County tax abatements, Bionova said it planned to invest $100 million into the initial facility, with $56.1 million allotted for construction. Another $45.8 million would go into 'fixed personal property,' or property that is attached in a way that makes it essential to the building's use. The improvements were expected to take the value of the Research Forest Drive property from $2.4 million to $78.5 million.
The abatement application also said Bionova had been considering North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, a hotbed of its own for pharmaceutical manufacturing. But McCool highlighted Houston-specific advantages in The Woodlands and the Texas Medical Center as factors that drew the company to Texas.
'It's a very intentional choice of doing (this) in The Woodlands because you're right across the street from Cellipont Bioservices and right up the street from the Texas Medical Center, where you have all these startups coming out of incubation, raising capital,' he said.
McCool also highlighted the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the state grant program that has given $3.8 billion to bring researchers and companies to Texas. Grantees often turn to CDMOs like Bionova to help them carry out their research.
But he also added he'd like to see the CPRIT rules directly require manufacturing to take place in the Lone Star State.
Bionova is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Asahi Kahei Medical, which McCool said has a 'long-term' vision for biopharma.
'There's a $25 billion company backing this new company in Texas, and that's a really good thing,' McCool said. 'They're investing in the U.S., in the manufacturing infrastructure that we need to support."
The San Francisco Business Times, an HBJ sister publication, reported in January that Bionova had completed its move into a new 55,000-square-foot space in California, doubling its employment in that area.
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