Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing breaks ground on $50M Grand Rapids expansion

Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing breaks ground on $50M Grand Rapids expansion
Rendering of a new Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing facility in Grand Rapids.

GRAND RAPIDS — Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing Inc. broke ground today on another expansion to accommodate growth.

The Grand Rapids-based contract development and manufacturing company’s plans for the $50 million, 18,000-square-foot fill-and-finish facility on Butterworth Avenue southwest of downtown follow a $60 million, 60,000-square-foot expansion that opened in June 2020.

The new large-scale facility “will offer future capacity for new technologies and further growth,” according to an announcement on the latest expansion.

“Embarking on multiple expansions and opening the doors of two state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities over the last two years, right here in our hometown, is tremendous,” Grand River Aseptic President and CEO Tom Ross said in a statement. “The innovative modular technology GRAM ordered for this new space arrives in early 2022 and allows GRAM to expand offerings to existing and future customers, ultimately taking on more products to support industry demand for getting products to market.”

The capability and capacity expansion “provides further opportunities to grow relationships with existing customers and to support a greater variety of production needs for additional customers,” according to the company.

Contractors on the project include CRB Consulting Engineers Inc., Midwest Cleanroom Associates Inc., MJM Process LLC, and Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation Inc.

Grand River Aseptic has been growing quickly, including going from 200 employees to 350 people in a  year and a half. The company this year has been involved in producing the COVID-19 vaccine for Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Last month, Ross was named Ernst & Young’s 2021 Entrepreneur of the Year for Michigan and Northwest Ohio, and Grand River Aseptic was named to the Inc. 5000 list of top private companies in America for the fifth year in a row.