GreenLight Biosciences expands Research Triangle Park, North Carolina footprint for the next generation of agricultural products

GreenLight Biosciences, a biotechnology company focused on RNA research, design, and manufacturing for human, animal, and plant health, has announced the expansion of its research and development operations in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina.

The new greenhouse, laboratory, and offices will add more than 60,000 square feet of space and enable the continuing growth of GreenLight’s plant health pipeline, adding more jobs in the process.

“This additional capacity is a critical step in helping us capitalize on our solutions for agriculture to realize a food-secure future,” says Mark Singleton, head of plant health at RTP. “The investment will help to keep us at the cutting edge of innovation and continue first-of-a-kind progress like we are currently seeing in our fungal program.”

“We expect to have 60 employees on site by the end of 2022, with our new spaces housing various entomology, fungal, and herbicide projects as well as the functions that support them.”

“GreenLight embodies the type of company we envisioned for our Alexandria Center^® for AgTech campus, a fully integrated, amenity-rich R&D and greenhouse campus,” said Blake Stevens, vice president of Science & Technology, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments.

“With the transformative potential of GreenLight’s RNA platform, we have both invested in and provided the company with mission-critical real estate, and we are thrilled to support their rapid growth and efforts to meaningfully improve human health and nutrition in the second phase of our first-of-its-kind agtech campus.”

Occupancy of the new greenhouse, where GreenLight will plant a variety of crops, will begin in the first quarter and increase growing capacity tenfold. Operations will support product research and development as the company works to bring innovative new tools to farmers to address pests and diseases, including botrytis and powdery mildew.

In 2022, GreenLight expects regulatory approval of its RNA-based product for controlling the Colorado potato beetle and to submit its honeybee health solution to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The company has seven agricultural products in development with an addressable market of $6 billion that it plans to launch by 2026. In October, GreenLight announced that effective control of fungal pathogens using double-stranded RNA had been achieved for the first time ever.