The BioAccelerator is a 75,000 sq ft multi-user, multi-function facility that supports bio-based businesses working on the innovation continuum from R&D incubation, through upstream and downstream bioprocessing in the Pilot Plant suites and finally to independent biomanufacturing suites for companies entering the marketplace.

This core capacity is augmented by the presence of the expertise and capabilities associated with the National Research Council’s atypical fermentation capacity.

This facility is unique in Canada in its design and service delivery components and is an important investment in support of Canada’s Biomanufacturing and Life Sciences Strategy.

The BioAccelerator will provide much needed capacity and expertise to support fermentation and downstream bioprocessing technologies in areas of outside of human health biologics. These include probiotics, natural product chemistry-derived products, animal and fish health products, and diagnostics. These are areas where capacity is extremely limited in North America and especially so in Canada.

This multi-user and multi-functional facility will also support key national priorities requiring biomanufacturing facilities and expertise, including the Protein Supercluster, Ocean Supercluster, and Natural Products Canada.

The BioAccelerator will be located in the BioCommons Research Park, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

The BioAccelerator will be owned by the Charlottetown Area Development Corporation and operated by the PEI BioAlliance.

Tenants in the R&D wet lab suites will typically lease for 2-4 years before requiring their own facilities. The pilot plant suites will be more project-based leases of several months in duration. The manufacturing suite tenants will usually lease for 3-5 years as they scale their businesses and establish their own facilities.

The Prince Edward Island Bioscience Cluster has, over the past decade, earned its reputation as the Atlantic leader in bioscience- based economic development and an important contributor to the national bioscience and life sciences sector. The Cluster is on track to becoming a $1 billion industry by 2030. This growth, catalysed and coordinated by PEI BioAlliance partners in business, research, and governments, is one of Canada’s best examples of cluster-based economic development. Key metrics below demonstrate the rapid growth of the Cluster and its economic impact on the region. The Cluster has had important regional and national impact through initiatives such as the Emergence Bioscience Business Incubator, Natural Products Canada, the Canadian Alliance for Skills and Training in Life Sciences, and BIOVECTRA’s new mRNA Vaccine Manufacturing facility.

Tenants in the BioAccelerator will include small and medium size enterprises and early-stage companies from Atlantic Canada, across Canada, and from international locations. The tenants will be companies at various stages of development who are looking for high quality, regulatory compliant space including the R&D Incubators, the pilot plants, or the manufacturing suites.

It also includes the expertise of the National Research Council’s atypical fermentation labs and the Canadian Alliance for Skills and Training in Life Sciences, providing hands-on biopharmaceutical manufacturing training for the talent pipeline that will be essential to Canada’s Biomanufacturing Strategy.

The term “Centre of Expertise in Biomanufacturing” applies to the whole of the PEI Bioscience Cluster of 60 companies along with supporting academic and research organizations, and infrastructure like the BioAccelerator.

Canada saw during the pandemic that our country was underinvested in biomanufacturing capacity to produce life-saving medicines. That’s why important investments like BIOVECTRA’s mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility are being built.

It includes businesses with the specialized world-class regulatory-compliant facilities and equipment and expertise to develop and commercialize new technologies that will contribute to solutions for global challenges in human and animal health, food security, and climate change.

The financing is jointly provided by the Government of PEI and the Government of Canada on a 50/50 basis.

The total cost of the project is estimated at $50 Million.

Phase 1 engineering design is underway. Detailed design will begin April 2023, construction will begin in April of 2024, and the facility will be completed in Fall of 2025.