ProBio is third company in recent years to make a go of New Jersey manufacturing site
Contract development and manufacturing organization ProBio recently launched its Cell and Gene Therapy Center of Excellence in Hopewell, New Jersey. ProBio is the latest company to occupy the location at the Princeton West Innovation Campus, investing in a 128,000-square-foot facility to manufacture high-quality plasmid DNA and viral vectors — including adeno-associated virus (AAV) and lentiviral vector (LVV).
Michael Vreeland, ProBio’s Hopewell site head, told Pharma Manufacturing that the CDMO has invested more than $80 million to renovate the facility’s suites to produce plasmid DNA and viral vectors to support clinical-stage development, process-development and scale-up for cell and gene therapy programs.
“We’re looking to be nimble and very strategic in the market, getting therapies to clinics and patients faster while upholding the utmost quality,” Vreeland said. “We put significant investment into this site. Clients are looking not only for the technical expertise but the one-stop shop.”
The flagship plasmid DNA and viral vector manufacturing facility in Hopewell is designed to be the hub of ProBio’s North American operations. Built to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards, the site provides scalable, end-to-end AAV production capabilities in a single U.S.-based location, with GMP AAV manufacturing launched in the third quarter of 2025 and GMP LVV services to follow in the first quarter of 2026.
“We can basically be your one-stop shop where you give us your gene of interest and we generate the plasmids needed,” said Lance Marquardt, ProBio’s director of manufacturing at the Hopewell facility, who noted the site has the capabilities to supply three different grades of plasmids — pre-Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) for research, GMP principle-grade for starting materials in clinical trials, and full GMP manufacturing.
The facility’s GMP AAV manufacturing platform offers flexible batch sizes from 50 liters to 200 liters, with the ability to run 2x200L batches concurrently to support early clinical through late-phase programs.
“For the most part, all of our GMP production processes here on site are fully single-use and that eliminates the need to do any kind of cleaning verification and cleaning testing,” Marquardt said. “There’s one GMP production line for plasmids currently and one for AAV.”
BMS and PTC Therapeutics
ProBio, a subsidiary of GenScript Biotech Corporation, took over the Hopewell facility in June 2024 from PTC Therapeutics, which previously signed a leasing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb in August 2019.
“This is my third company at this site,” said Marquardt, who previously led PTC Therapeutics’ upstream production group for gene therapy at the site from 2020-2024 and before that upstream processing for Bristol Myers Squibb from 2010-2020.
Matthew Main, senior product manager for cell and gene therapy at ProBio, contends that the Hopewell team’s collective experience over the years at the site is a strength that the CDMO’s potential customers value.
“One of the top three things they look at is technical experience with a team — not just a new site with shiny equipment, but how much history does the team have in successful execution of even various serotypes,” Main said.
Vreeland said ProBio had been considering another New Jersey site in East Hanover, which GenScript had previously leased. “That was going to be the original ProBio spot,” he noted.
However, the Hopewell site became available and — given its BMS and PTC legacy — “from a strategic location perspective this was perfect” and seen more as a “turnkey” facility due to previous equipment investments made there, Vreeland said. “So, we jumped on that opportunity to acquire this site.”
