U.Va. breaks ground on Manning biotech institute

The University of Virginia began construction Friday on the $350 million Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology.

Paul and Diane Manning launched the institute with a $100 million donation in January. Paul Manning founded PBM Products, which became the world’s largest privately owned infant formula and baby food business, and sold it to Perrigo for an estimated $808 million in 2010. He then set up PBM Capital, a health care-focused private equity firm that invests in pharmaceutical and life sciences startups.

“The facility we’re building here will be best-in-class and a true game-changer for science and medicine,” Paul Manning, who is chairman and CEO of PBM Capital, said in a statement. “Research, manufacturing and treatment — we’re bringing it all together under one roof. The work that will be done here will transform the future of medicine.”

The 350,000-square-foot institute in Fontaine Research Park in Charlottesville will bring biotech research, development and manufacturing at U.Va. together. Its main goal will be to develop targeted treatments for diseases that either have no cure or involve therapies that make life hard on patients, such as chemotherapy and radiation. The four-story institute will focus on medical research like cellular therapy, gene therapy, nanotechnology and drug delivery. U.Va. will also use the institute to expand its clinical trial offerings.

The facility’s expected completion and initial occupancy is late 2026.

The state government provided $50 million for the project in its 2022-24 budget, and U.Va. committed $150 million.

“This cutting-edge facility will help attract a full spectrum of bioscience companies to the commonwealth and ensure more Virginians can receive care and treatment right here in the commonwealth,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a statement. “Thanks to the generous contributions of Paul and Diane Manning and critical collaboration with U.Va. leaders, this institute with help transform the biotech and health care industries.”

The building will have laboratory space, research facilities, core facilities and an area for researchers and partnering biotech companies, as well as a café and conference center, a new parking structure and a heating plant.

The Mannings are established benefactors of U.Va. As of May, the couple had contributed more than $6 million toward diabetes and COVID-19 research at U.Va. They started funding diabetes research more than two decades ago, Paul Manning told Virginia Business.

In May 2020, U.Va. announced a $1 million gift from the Mannings to establish the Manning Fund for COVID-19 Research, which was used to fast-track research on expanding testing and developing therapies and vaccines for the coronavirus, which was then still a new threat.