Alexion Pharmaceuticals will buy a new facility in Rhode Island to make its experimental drug, Soliris, for a rare blood disorder, according to a Reuters report. Soliris is intended to treat Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria, which affects between 8,000 and 10,000 people in the U.S. and Europe and causes red blood cells to be attacked and destroyed by the body’s own immune system. The drug will be filed in the second half of 2006 with the FDA and EMEA. The drug Soliris is presently manufactured by Lonza Biologics of Switzerland at a plant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The 55,000-sq.-ft. plant in Smithfield, RI, was previously used by Dow Chemical as a biopharmaceutical facility. Alexion will retrofit the plant to include two 10,000-liter bioreactors and associated purification suites with a pilot plant. The company hopes to begin manufacturing Soliris at the Rhode Island plant in 2008.