Scott Bustos, vice president and general manager at Turner, said in a statement that the project requires “technical expertise” for the advanced manufacturing plant, which will be built to meet Process Safety Management standards. The standards are issued by the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for sites dealing with hazardous chemicals.

Agilent plans to produce therapeutic nucleic acids or oligonucleotides, a type of active pharmaceutical ingredient made of short DNA and RNA molecules, for use in drugs targeting cancer, cardiovascular disease and infectious diseases at the plant. The facility would use advanced automation and engineering enhancements, Agilent says. Those include water reduction plus solvent capturing and recycling.

The facility would include two manufacturing lines to meet rising demand, which Agilent says it has projected to grow by double digits annually over the next five years. Sam Raha, president of Agilent’s diagnostics and genomics group, said in a statement that the company intends to “help existing and new biopharma customers develop, globally commercialize, and accelerate growth of oligo-based therapeutics” with the manufacturing expansion.

Agilent has two other oligonucleotide plants in Colorado, one 77,000-sq-ft facility in Boulder and another at 135,000 sq ft in Frederick. A second manufacturing line built at the Frederick facility is scheduled to come online this year, Agilent says.