Moderna looks to the West Coast for latest expansion – Endpoints News

Moderna’s physical presence in the US is mostly limited to the east coast. But now it will fly its flag on the west coast.

The mRNA biotech announced Friday that it will open two new offices in South San Francisco and Seattle this year. said Brad Miller, Moderna’s chief information officer Endpoint News the Seattle office is scheduled to open on April 4th.

The Seattle location will house Moderna’s technology efforts and implementation of AI and cloud tools across its platform. Miller said Seattle is home to a rich market for tech talent, making it an attractive choice for an office. Moderna will aim to hire about 100 employees but has room to increase that number to about 220.

“It’s notorious for being very entrepreneurial and very tech-savvy. All the capabilities we need at Moderna to expand our capacity and continue to serve our customers with medicines,” Miller said.

Moderna Genomics will expand to the South San Francisco location. However, not many details have emerged about the number of employees or the opening at this location. Miller explained that having a presence in the Bay Area will also bring the company closer to more tech talent.

Moderna’s westward expansion comes as the company plans to increase its workforce by 2,000. Miller said employee growth is being seen across the board, but many of the new employees will be manufacturing-specific to try to make vaccines and therapeutics with “a greater capability.”

“We need to enable the manufacturing (and) commercialization of these therapeutics and vaccines, and so our focus will be on making sure we unlock the potential of the company,” he said.

The surge in headcount comes at a time when many in the biotech scene are cutting pipelines and staffing levels, but Miller states that Moderna is in an expansion phase as it experienced “rapid growth” during the Covid-19 pandemic . Miller noted that the company has an opportunity to scale its systems and that it is the right time to scale.

Moderna will also expand across the Atlantic, opening a new research and manufacturing facility in Oxfordshire, UK.