Maryland’s 2025 CDMO Landscape Analysis: From Vectors to Vials

By Chris Frew

Maryland’s contract-manufacturing scene has fueled up and ready to hit escape velocity. Over the past 18 months alone, more than $600 million in new bricks-and-mortar and M&A dollars have poured into the I-270/I-95 corridor as global players race to lock up viral-vector suites, complex-biologic know-how and sterile fill-finish lines, while new investment into Antibody development picks up as well. 

The deals matter: with the FDA approving a record number of gene-therapy BLAs in late 2024 and later stage companies enjoying the lions share of attention from venture capital, developers can’t afford six-month waits for GMP slots. Meanwhile, state and county incentives—plus a pipeline of trained talent from Montgomery College's biomanufacturing and cell and gene therapy certificate programs, or from Bio-Trac's flow cytometry workshops — the “build or buy” decisions keep nudging toward Maryland. (Need more context? BioBuzz has chronicled everything from AstraZeneca’s new $300 million CAR-T plant in Rockville to Frederick County’s rise as a soft-landing magnet for overseas scale-ups.) BioBuzz News CenterBioBuzz News Center

Macrogenics emerged in 2024 with a new CDMO operation built on the foundation of over two decades of industry leading innovation and expertise in antibody development and production, and new companies such a Xcellon Biologics are launching to supply the growing market for ADCs and bispecifics.

Below, we group the headline CDMOs by what they actually make and give you the freshest news hooks for each. Use it as a capacity cheat-sheet—or as proof that you no longer have to fly to Boston or Basel for advanced manufacturing.

Gene- & Cell-Therapy Vector Specialists

Maryland’s biggest growth spurt is in viral vectors and cell therapies. Three years ago, Catalent’s Harmans campus handled the lion’s share of AAV work; today nine operators compete for the same IND-to-BLA pipeline. Catalent has nearly finished its third expansion—an extra three 2,000 L suites and 700 jobs—pushing its total spend at BWI past $230 million. (Fierce Pharma)  At the other end of the spectrum, Vector BioMed is courting emerging biotechs with its new LENTIVERSE™ modular LV platform, previewed at ISCT and ASGCT this month. (PR Newswire)

Equally important is consolidation: in November 2024, Ascend Advanced Therapies merged with long-time vaccine house ABL, blending Ascend’s CGT tool-kit with ABL’s 60-year viral-vector playbook and doubling Rockville capacity.(ABL, Inc.) The result is a one-stop shop that now runs AAV, oncolytic viruses and vaccine vectors under the same roof—an attractive proposition for platform companies chasing speed.

CDMO (site)	Core sweet-spot	2024-25 headline
Catalent Gene Therapy – Harmans	AAV/LV DS→DP, 2 k L to commercial	$230 M, three-suite expansion; +700 jobs Fierce Pharma
Lonza Walkersville	Viral vectors, cell-therapy DS, custom media	18 k ft² endotoxin-assay plant upgrade (Sept 2024) Lonza
ABL + Ascend – Rockville	AAV, oncolytic & vaccine vectors, CGT PD → GMP	Ascend merges with ABL to create integrated U.S. hub (Nov 2024) ABL, Inc.
Charles River Laboratories – Rockville	Plasmid → AAV/Ad/LV turnkey	Launched six off-the-shelf AAV reference serotypes (May 2024) Charles River
Miltenyi Biotec – Gaithersburg	Lentiviral design & auto/allo cell therapies	Broke ground on 250 k ft² HQ/GMP build-out (Nov 2024) LinkedIn
Vector BioMed – Gaithersburg	Rapid-turn LV vectors	Unveiled LENTIVERSE™ platform (May 2025) PR Newswire
uBriGene – Germantown	Plasmid DNA, AAV, CAR-T suites	Designated Germantown as North-Am CGT hub (Oct 2024) investors.emergentbiosolutions.com

Take-away: The vector bottleneck is gone; Maryland now offers plasmid, viral-vector and early cell-therapy capacity within a 40-mile radius—one reason BioBuzz dubbed the region “ground zero for CGT scale-up” this spring. BioBuzz News Center

Vaccine Platform Pros

The pandemic drove massive over-build in vaccine DS—but 2025’s shake-out has created opportunity. Emergent exited third-party manufacturing altogether, selling its Camden fill-finish plant to Bora and its Bayview biologics site to Syngene. That pivot injects two well-capitalized outsiders into Baltimore just as RSV, mpox and next-gen COVID programs seek capacity. Bora PharmaceuticalsGlobeNewswire

Meanwhile, IDT Biologika is getting a $244 million shot in the arm from South Korea’s SK bioscience, which bought 60 % of the company and earmarked new capital for Rockville suites. For Maryland, it means sticky jobs (IDT already employs ~200 locally) and a stronger link to SK’s global vaccine pipeline. IDT Biologika

What to watch: With Syngene’s first U.S. plant coming online and IDT flush with SK cash, look for Maryland to snag late-stage RSV and chikungunya contracts that might otherwise migrate to Europe.

Complex Biologics, ADCs & Bispecific Experts

As pipelines tilt toward antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and T-cell engagers, Maryland has incubated a mini-cluster of niche CDMOs that know their way around linkers, payloads and dual-target formats. Xcellon Biologics officially opened in North Bethesda this January, promising “ADC-through-TCE” non-GMP process development for startups that can’t afford to buy conjugation lines. LinkedIn On the commercial side, MacroGenics—best known for its DART® bispecifics—quietly boosted contract-manufacturing revenue 170 % year-over-year as it opened spare suites to third parties. Catalent

Frederick County rounds out the story: Kemp Proteins added fluorophore-conjugation services via a Columbia Biosciences partnership, while BioFactura locked up a $7.8 million BARDA option for its orthopox monoclonal, keeping its biosimilar mAb platform humming. biohealthinnovation.orgbiofactura.com

Macro view: Expect deal-making here to heat up; big pharma’s ADC buying spree (Pfizer → Seagen, J&J → Ambrx) means mid-scale conjugation slots will be gold by 2026.

Small-Molecule & Sterile Drug-Product Specialists

Biologics may grab headlines, but tablets and vials still pay the rent. Maryland now sports two serious DP houses—and both changed hands in the last year. Jabil, the $35 billion Florida manufacturing giant, leapt into pharma by buying Pharmaceutics International Inc. (Pii) for an undisclosed sum in February 2025. The Hunt Valley campus (360 k ft² across four buildings) gives Jabil aseptic filling, lyophilization and high-potency oral-solid dose under one roof. Jabil Investors

On the waterfront, Taiwan’s Bora Pharmaceuticals completed its $30 million buyout of Emergent’s Camden fill-finish plant, inheriting four isolator lines capable of vials or pre-filled syringes plus 350 trained staff. Bora Pharmaceuticals Taken together, the two deals add badly needed U.S. sterile capacity at exactly the moment oncology injectables and GLP-1 combo products hit Phase III.

Industry pulse: With Emergent out of the third-party game and legacy Catalent capacity tight, Jabil and Bora are well-positioned to scoop up biotech programs that can’t stomach West Coast logistics.

Bottom line

Take the vector slot at ABL/Ascend, move to IDT for a rapid vaccine tox lot, conjugate your ADC at Xcellon and finish in a Bora syringe—all without leaving Maryland. For founders, investors and talent, the Free State has quietly become a one-stop CDMO corridor. If your roadmap still shows only Boston and Raleigh, it’s time for an update.

(Want deeper site-by-site capacity numbers or warm intros? Drop BioBuzz a note—we’re watching every lease, ribbon-cutting and county-council vote.)