MassDevelopment Bond Helps Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing Purchase, Renovate Lee Building
August 18, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Kelsey Abbruzzese, MassDevelopment, 617-330-2086 & 617-448-9077 (cell)
kabbruzzese@massdevelopment.com
Andrea Wagner, Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing, 617-899-0670
awagner@berkshiresterilemanufacturing.com
MassDevelopment has issued a $4,083,000 bond on behalf of Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing, Inc., which will help the biopharmaceutical startup buy and renovate portions of a 116,000-square-foot building in Lee. Renovation plans for a new manufacturing facility include clean rooms, labs, and work rooms for product formulation, final inspection, and packaging. The company will also use bond proceeds to buy and install new drug manufacturing equipment. MassDevelopment enhanced this financing with mortgage and equipment insurance guarantees. Berkshire Bank purchased the bond.
“Through our financing programs, MassMEC, and the AMP it up! campaign, MassDevelopment is committed to supporting growth in the manufacturing sector in Massachusetts, and projects such as Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing’s new facility in Lee help us accomplish that goal,” said MassDevelopment President and CEO Marty Jones. “This bond will help Berkshire Sterile create manufacturing job opportunities to the Berkshire region and bolster the Commonwealth’s biopharmaceutical manufacturing sector.”
Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing plans to focus on contract manufacturing sterile drugs in the pre-clinical and clinical phases for pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies at its new facility. Berkshire Sterile’s services will include the filling of syringes, vials, cartridges, and dual chamber devices and also provide formulation development, terminal sterilization, freeze-drying, analytical chemistry and microbiological testing, quality assurance, and stability studies. The company’s principals founded and operated Hyaluron Inc. in Burlington in 1999, which received a MassDevelopment Emerging Technology Fund loan in 2005, until Albany Molecular Research Inc. acquired the business in 2010. Berkshire Sterile’s owners and operators have extensive experience and relationships in the sterile drug manufacturing industry as a result of their experience. Berkshire Sterile plans to attract customers with superior quality and service at its state-of-the-art production facility in Lee.
“We are excited to work with MassDevelopment again,” said the company’s CEO, Shawn Kinney. “MassDevelopment was key to our success with our prior company and their participation with Berkshire Bank will allow us to create jobs in an exciting industry which is new to Western Massachusetts.”
MassDevelopment, the state’s finance and development agency, works with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions, and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth. During FY2013, MassDevelopment financed or managed 350 projects generating investment of more than $2.4 billion in the Massachusetts economy. These projects are projected to create more than 7,000 jobs and build or rehabilitate 800 residential units.
