Man­u­fac­tur­ing re­org at Mer­ck KGaA in­spires a $500M+ in­vest­ment in mR­NA tech

Just weeks af­ter Mer­ck KGaA re­or­ga­nized its CD­MO and con­tract test­ing unit around the $780 mil­lion buy­out of LNP play­er Ex­e­lead, the phar­ma play­er has now closed the deal and rolled out plans to in­vest more than a half-bil­lion dol­lars in the new ops to build up their mR­NA of­fer­ings in a fast-ex­pand­ing sec­tor of the mar­ket.

The in­vest­ment — slat­ed to take 10 years — will en­sure that its cus­tomers have com­pre­hen­sive CD­MO ser­vices across the mR­NA val­ue chain, it said. Ex­e­lead spe­cial­izes in PE­Gy­lat­ed prod­ucts lipid nanopar­ti­cle-based drug de­liv­ery tech, which is a key el­e­ment of Covid-19 vac­cines, among oth­ers. Mer­ck KGaA al­so ac­quired man­u­fac­tur­er AmpTec in 2020. Be­tween those two ad­di­tions, the team ex­pects to speed up its abil­i­ty to bring vac­cines and treat­ments to pa­tients.

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