Northway Biotech Opens €61M Cell Therapy CDMO Facility in Vilnius

Northway Biotech has opened a €61 million cell therapy and personalized medicine facility in Vilnius, Lithuania, expanding its CDMO capabilities in advanced therapies.

The 3,500-square-meter BIO CITY III center will support development and cGMP manufacturing of autologous and allogeneic cell therapies, personalized therapeutic vaccines, regenerative medicine applications and 3D human tissue technologies.

The facility can accommodate up to 20 independent cGMP manufacturing lines and begins operations with customer programs already secured.

Northway Group financed the new center, which is operated by Kamieninių ląstelių tyrimų centras (Stem Cell Research Center) under the Northway Biotech brand.

The company said the facility is the first dedicated center of its kind in the Baltic States and is designed to support biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, university hospitals and research institutions.

Expanding Advanced Therapy Capacity

The new center builds on Northway Biotech’s existing development and manufacturing capabilities in mammalian and microbial biologics, gene therapy and cell-based technologies.

Its segregated manufacturing infrastructure is designed to allow multiple cell-based products and processes to be handled in parallel while maintaining requirements for product identity, quality, traceability and contamination control.

The Stem Cell Research Center, founded in 2011 by Prof. Vladas Algirdas Bumelis, is also marking its 15th anniversary this year.

“Fifteen years ago, we did not have a €61 million center – we had people and ambition. Over the years, we have built practical experience, grown our team, and advanced our cell technology capabilities. Today, we are systematically taking all of this to an entirely new scale. What seemed like the future of medicine 15 years ago is now being created here in Lithuania,” said Bumelis, founder of the Northway Group.

The facility includes quality control laboratories, advanced cleanroom systems and segregated infrastructure for the manufacture of highly sensitive cell therapies.

In personalized medicine, some manufacturing processes may be dedicated to an individual patient.

“We are accustomed to traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing, where a single process produces medicines for large numbers of patients. Here, in some cases, an entire manufacturing process may be dedicated to just one person. It is a completely different pharmaceutical model – and this is precisely the kind of medicine this center was built for,” Bumelis said.

Cell and Tissue Technologies

Northway Biotech said the center will expand its work across several areas of cell and tissue technology.

These include approaches in which a patient’s immune cells are modified to recognize and destroy specific cancer cells, as well as 3D human tissue technologies used to create more physiologically relevant tissue models and evaluate drug effects.

The company also plans to expand work in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and personalized therapeutic vaccine technologies.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda attended the opening and highlighted the center’s potential role in the country’s life sciences sector.

“This center is about people. About scientists who will be able to stay in Lithuania and work with technologies that are shaping the future of medicine. About patients for whom personalized medicine is not an abstract concept, but a real treatment option. And about all of us as a country, proving that we can be not only observers, but creators at the global frontier of science,” Nausėda said.

Part of the BIO CITY Network

The new facility becomes the latest addition to the BIO CITY ecosystem being developed by Northway.

BIO CITY I includes Northway Biotech’s mammalian and microbial biologics development and manufacturing capabilities across Vilnius and Boston. BIO CITY II houses the company’s gene therapy center, while BIO CITY III adds further capacity for cell therapy and personalized medicine.

The company said approximately 100 life sciences professionals are expected to work at the new center.

The €61 million project is financed through private funds and a loan from Lithuania’s national development bank ILTE under the Milijardas verslui initiative.

Lithuania has set a goal for life sciences to account for 5% of the country’s GDP by 2030.

Edvinas Grikšas, Lithuania’s Minister of the Economy and Innovation, said the investment reflects continued growth in the country’s biomedical sector.

“Today, Lithuania is not only a user of advanced technologies, but also a country where they are created and developed,” Grikšas said. “The opening of the BIO CITY center is an important step in strengthening Lithuania’s biomedical ecosystem and our position in the international market.”