WuXi STA, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), is building a new pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Middletown, Delaware. The state-of-the-art WuXi STA Middletown Site, which is expected to open in 2024 will be its first on the East Coast. The campus will be located at 1091 Industrial Drive in Middletown Business Center and aims to bring about 500 new full-time jobs to Delaware by 2026.

“This is an investment in good jobs that will drive economic growth in southern New Castle County and across Delaware,” said Governor John Carney. “I want to be the first to welcome WuXi STA to our great state. Over the next five years, WuXi STA plans to build a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in one of Delaware’s fastest-growing communities. This campus will build on our strength in biopharmaceuticals—and it’s only possible because of Delaware’s world-class, innovative workforce. Thank you to WuXi STA, Middletown Mayor Kenny Branner and everyone who made this project possible.”

Minzhang Chen, CEO of WuXi STA, said, “WuXi STA is excited to join Delaware’s growing healthcare community and establish Middletown as the home of our new state-of-the-art pharmaceutical clinical and commercial manufacturing complex. Delaware’s highly trained pharmaceutical manufacturing workforce and proximity to many of our customers provide tremendous opportunities to support the region’s economic growth and efforts to advance pharmaceutical development and manufacturing. We are grateful to Delaware and Middletown for their leadership in fostering a strong entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem, and we look forward to collaborating to deliver groundbreaking treatments for patients.”

There is both growing industry demand, and local customer demand for innovative technologies to help companies advance pharmaceutical discovery and development throughout the pre-clinical, clinical and manufacturing pipelines. As an industry-leading global CDMO, WuXi STA provides customers with one-stop manufacturing services for both drug substance and drug product, including oral and injectable dosage forms. The new facility in Middletown will feature space for testing laboratories; manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); and manufacture and packaging of solid dosage pharmaceutical products and sterile products. Jobs at the site will include manufacturing operators, lab technicians, quality assurance and control staff, scientists and management, administrative and warehouse support staff. Supporting WuXi STA’s plans are grants that the company was approved to receive from the Delaware Strategic Fund by the state Council on Finance Development. 

“This campus on 190 acres is going to add a tremendous diversity of good jobs to Middletown, New Castle County and Delaware as a whole. WuXi STA’s selection of Middletown reinforces what we do here, adds great value to what we have been working on for many years and shows us they have confidence in us, to want to be a part of what we have built here,” said Middletown Mayor Kenny Branner, who added that he would like to thank the governor and the several state departments the town has been working with, especially Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP) and Kurt Foreman, president & CEO of DPP.

“We win the future by attracting global leading healthcare firms like WuXi STA to New Castle County,” said New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer. “This project will bring hundreds of good-paying jobs to the area and will advance New Castle County’s goal of growing our biotech industry. We welcome WuXi STA to New Castle County and look forward to its partnerships in Middletown and all across our community as it looks to fill jobs from our local and talented workforce.”

“Now in its fourth year of operation, the DPP team is proving that the public-private economic development model works well to leverage Delaware’s distinctive capacity to collaborate,” said Corporation Service Company President Rod Ward, who co-chairs DPP’s Board of Directors along with Governor John Carney. “The WuXi STA team worked through the DPP team with a host of partners, including the State of Delaware, the Town of Middletown, New Castle County, Delaware Technical and Community College, Chesapeake Utilities and many other regulatory and community partners.”

WuXi STA joins numerous other companies in choosing Middletown for growth in large-scale sites. The new facility will be near Middletown’s one million square-foot Amazon fulfillment center, as well as Datwyler Sealing Solutions’ 200,000 square-foot Middletown manufacturing plant and Breakthru Beverage’s new 285,000 square-foot headquarters.

WuXi STA currently provides pharmaceutical development and manufacturing solutions for over 470 partners worldwide, covering small molecules and novel molecular modalities such as oligonucleotide, peptide and various complex conjugates. The future Middletown site will become WuXi STA’s second site in the U.S., and will contain state-of-the-art pharmaceutical clinical and commercial manufacturing capabilities. The 190-acre campus will be home to WuXi STA's 8th global manufacturing facility.

WuXi STA’s current project plan is an initial phase for this new campus. Subsequent phases could further expand its campus in Middletown to a total workforce of more than 1,000 employees.