Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from the line of Mona Ashiya - J.P. Morgan.
Mona Ashiya - J.P. Morgan
On the new manufacturing infrastructure, I’m wondering what kind of time frame you are looking at to get the Maryland facility up and running if you use this for RPA and also what sort of capacity this facility has and also what level of investment it would take beyond the actual purchase to get it ready for manufacturing.
Fuad El-Hibri
There are several questions you’ve just posed. Now let me try to answer them one by one. First, we do believe that the new facility in Maryland is suitable for RPA manufacturing and as I mentioned earlier, this facility did produce licensed products before. We are in the process of evaluating each of the suites and their suitability for the RPA manufacturing requirement. We’re not at a stage right now where we can share with you or anyone else the scope of the costs to make that suite 100% compatible for the manufacturing process.
Mona Ashiya - J.P. Morgan
Can you say what kind of capacity?
Fuad El-Hibri
It can generate the same type of capacity as Building 55 would.
Mona Ashiya - J.P. Morgan
Actually that fits nicely into my next question which is on the status of Building 55. My impression was that the qualification and validation that was needed to use this facility for BioThrax was suspended when you thought the facility could be used for RPA so I was wondering if you wanted to use this facility now for BioThrax, what kind of time frame are you looking at get it set up again to use for BioThrax manufacturing again?
Fuad El-Hibri
Yes, that’s a very good question Mona because one of the reasons why we looked at another facility was exactly that we wanted to have an opportunity not only to produce RPA but also continue the scale-up of BioThrax. So with this new facility, assuming the government agrees with our plan we may be able to achieve both. The question as to timing will depend on the plan that we agree with the government and the timing of the award, but one thing I can tell you is that the moment the government has agreed that we can use this alternative facility for RPA manufacturing we would resume the scale-up activities of BioThrax.
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