Enzene Opens New NJ Facility, Positioning Itself as a ‘CIDMO’ Partner

*Full transcript available below.

BioPharm International® had the opportunity to attend the Sept. 3, 2025 ribbon-cutting of Enzene Biosciences’ (Enzene) first major manufacturing investment in the United States, its 80,000-square-foot facility located in Hopewell, NJ.

The opening of the site was attended by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy, as well as other state officials who welcomed the company to its new home that was formerly occupied by Bristol Myers Squibb.

Following the ceremony, BioPharm International sat down with Enzene CEO Himanshu Gadgil, PhD, for an exclusive interview in which Gadgil made a distinction between the mission of a traditional contract development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO, and what Enzene hopes to position itself as at its New Jersey site: a CIDMO, or “continuously innovative” development and manufacturing organization.

“What we’ve been doing for the last 10 years is to innovate, disrupt, [and] create opportunities in terms of affordability and access, and so we want to continually aim to do that,” Gadgil says in the interview. “That’s what CIDMO represents: that Enzene stands for continuous innovation, and we want to partner with a lot of our clients for their innovation and build something fantastic together.”

Gadgil said that although the Enzene team has been building this strategy for the last decade, it is looking to the next decade—or two—to prioritize its expansion within the US, particularly in view of new tariff policies that have gone into effect in 2025, the effects of which may be far-reaching and long-lasting.

The full interview appears above, along with footage and still images of the Hopewell facility.

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

Our mission and growth strategy is to bring affordable medicines to the globe. We started in India, we've supplied [a] million doses there, and as a CIDMO, now we want to bring the technology to all the corners of the world. [The] US is the first step, so we are establishing it here. Of course, the majority of the innovation also happens in the US. And so we are looking forward to partner with some great American companies.

We are truly fully connected from end to end, from bioreactors all the way to pre-drug substance. And that is how we are different, because there are different ways in which you look at continuous manufacturing and intensification. But our platform is unique because it is fully connected end to end. That allows us to manufacture huge quantities in a very small footprint, and that's what we are bringing here to the Hopewell site as well.

Even from India, we've supported a lot of American companies, to rapidly take their molecules through to the clinical stage. And what we realized along the way is there are so many great, innovative companies in the US that struggle to find the right CDMO partner. And sometimes I wonder if some of these molecules don't go through because they don't find the right partner. So what we are trying to do is, by bringing manufacturing locally to the US, be able to better support these innovative companies, and hopefully we will contribute by bringing these medicines faster to the clinic and hopefully faster to the patients after that.

What we want to partner with is for innovation. And that's what we've been doing for the last 10 years, is to innovate, disrupt, create opportunities in terms of affordability, access, and so we want to continually aim to do that. And that's what CIDMO represents, that Enzene stands for continuous innovation. And we want to partner with a lot of our clients for their innovation and build something fantastic together.

I think we have an amazing platform, EnzeneX, that has disrupted manufacturing technology, the conventional fed batch, and it offers significant advantages when it comes to cost of goods, when it comes to sustainability, when it comes to access of these medicines throughout the world. So we want to really expand that throughout the globe and see how we can really address accessibility and affordability, not just in India [and the] US, but in the rest of the world as well.

I think the regulatory landscape is evolving even for biosimilars. And we have developed molecules which are now getting registered in the US from India. So we understand the landscape very well. We understand what it takes to make sure that the EnzeneX platform complies to the regulatory standards. So those pieces are covered in terms of the tariffs ... I think we want to look at a long-term play, and we want to make sure that we are looking at a 10-year, 20-year growth strategy, and a lot of the socioeconomic aspects will continue to evolve the way they do, but we want to have a longer-term vision and just keep on doing good work, bring innovation to our partners, and make a difference to the world around us.

We've already started expanding in the US. We had put two lines, we had taken 50,000 square feet of this space, and we had to expand because of the demand that we are getting in the US. So I see a lot of demand for continuous manufacturing, for manufacturing innovations in general. As I was saying, there's a lot of innovation. I think [the] US is a country where there's a lot of innovation in this space of drug development, and I think we can really offer a further advantage to a lot of these clients. And so I feel we are going to continue to grow in the US, just like what we've done in India. We started with 20 people in India 10 years back. Now we are around 650 people. We are starting with 50 people here in Hopewell. So I see that same trajectory, or maybe even a bigger growth trajectory for us in the US.