b'Being in Boulder also enables us to attract and retain talent.BRIAN McCUDDEN,GLOBAL HEAD OF PEPTIDE OPERATIONS, CORDEN PHARMAWhen you have that combination of a beau- have in place and the ability to expand, saysPeptides can be found in the body naturally tiful place to live, people who want to be kindBrian McCudden, Global Head of Peptideand can also be synthesized in a laboratory. and driven, who care about education andProduction at CordenPharma.They are highly diverse in their use, including doing ambitious things, you end up with allBeing in Boulder also enables us to attracthaving antimicrobial, anti-tumor, anti-diabetic, the right factors for something like this toand retain talent, says McCudden, whoseand numerous other properties. That means succeed, Stoll says. team recruits the majority of CordenPharmapeptides can be used for a wide range of The company expects to begin clinical trials toemployees from Colorado schools. McCuddenindications for patients, including cardiovas-evaluate their drug in patients with recurrentalso sees the strong life sciences ecosystemcular risk reduction, addiction treatment, and glioblastoma early next year. in Colorado as an asset for talent attraction,Alzheimers treatment.not as competition: The more companies youBecause the development and manufacturing CordenPharma: Europeanhave in an area that are doing similar thingsof peptides is highly specialized and not a lot CDMO Expands Peptideencourages a wider talent pool.of pharmaceutical companies have the exper-Demand for peptides, the building blocks oftise or capacity to develop and manufacture Production in Boulder them, McCudden sees outsourced peptide protein formed when amino acids are linked Coloradowasthenaturalchoiceforvia peptide bonds, has exploded in theproduction as an area of continued growth CordenPharma to supercharge its peptidepast several years, due to the popularity offor the company.production with a $500 million expansion atglucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists for its current Boulder site. The company, a Swissweight loss and diabetes treatment, as well as Contract Development and Manufacturingoncology and radiopharmaceuticals. Organization (CDMO), with six technologyCordenPharmawillmeetthatdemand platforms and eleven manufacturing facilities inbyaddingover200employeestothe North America and Europe, provides integratedcurrent staff of 700 and increasing the manufacturing of APIs, Lipids, Drug Products,footprint of the facility in Boulder by 50%. and Packaging services to support pharmaceu- Fundamentally, you could argue that we will tical and biotech innovators with the complexbe close to doubling our output (with this modalities they need across their drug lifecycleexpansion), says McCudden. The first phase from development to commercialization. of expansion is planned to come online in The decision to expand was a combination of2026, and the final phase is scheduled to be the really good infrastructure that we alreadycompleted in 2028.40 BIOSCIENCE COLORADO 2025-2026'