Leanbio, a biotech specialized in developing and manufacturing biological and biosimilar drugs, will invest 35 million euros in building a new factory in Sant Quirze del Vallès. The company had already invested 6 million euros in the new plant, which will replace the pilot plant it has now, with a surface area of ??400 m2, and will multiply its capacity, up to 4,000 m2.

The company is now going to make an additional investment of 20 million euros in the installation of three new production lines, which has obtained support from European Next Generation funds, according to its CEO, Albert Font. In a third phase, the firm plans to invest another 10 million in a third expansion.

Leanbio has its headquarters and plant in the Barcelona Science Park and was founded in 2014 by Font himself and Andreu Soldevila, two doctors in biotechnology. In addition to the founders, it has a dozen shareholders, among which are industrial companies such as Mecanizados Durany, investment groups and the pharmaceutical company Reig Jofre, with which it has created a joint company, Syna Therapeutics.

Font explained that the company has developed a flexible technological platform that allows the development of biological and biosimilar products to be accelerated, so its clients are generic companies, but also startups and large innovative pharmaceutical companies, both Spanish and European, that need to use proteins. recombinants, antibodies or messenger RNA for advanced therapies within the biopharmaceutical sector.

Leanbio has invoiced 5 million euros this year with more than one million euros of operating profit or ebitda. “We are growing at rates greater than 40% annually and the current plant was too small for us,” he acknowledged.

The company now has 20 workers, which will reach 50 when the new factory is operating in 2025. “When we have it at full capacity, we will have more than one hundred employees and about 50 million in turnover,” he assured.

Leanbio has been one of the 18 companies that has obtained aid from the Perte Salud de Vanguardia of the European Funds, which will finance close to 10% of this second phase of the enlargement. “Our factory will become a basic infrastructure to accelerate the growth of the biotech sector in Barcelona,” said Font. In her opinion, the possibility of accelerating the development of new drugs, from the clinical phase to reaching the market, “will allow biotech companies that are now closing rounds of 20 million to close rounds of 100 million.”