Amgen plant will boost Boehringer Ingelheim’s US presence
pharmafile | January 21, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Abgenix, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Vectibix, panitumumab, pharma manufacturingÂ
Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim has agreed to buy a development and manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, from leading biotechnology firm Amgen.
The 100,000 sq.ft. Fremont plant employs around 360 staff and has an associated pilot plant and process development labs. It is expected to formally be handed over to Boehringer before the end of March.
The deal comes off the back of a longstanding relationship between the two companies in which Boehringer provided contract manufacturing services for the US biotech. Under the terms of the deal, the German company will continue to provide those services but will take over the day-to-day running of the plant.
The agreement with Boehringer ties in with the trend in which CMOs are changing from tactical partners – providing services on a project-by-project basis – to become strategic partners integrated into the internal manufacturing network of a drugmaker via long-term contacts.
For the biopharmaceutical company this can take away the overheads of running a facility, reduce the cost of goods and accelerate speed to market for new manufacturing projects.
Amgen obtained the facility through its $2.2 billion acquisition of Abgenix in 2006, and currently uses it to make colorectal cancer drug Vectibix (panitumumab) and some other product lines.
Vectibix was launched with great fanfare in 2008/2009 with Amgen at the time predicting that it could achieve sales of $2 billion at peak. Take-up has not been as fast as hoped – in part because of difficulties in securing approval for new indications – and sales of the drug were around $140 million in the first six months of 2010.
For Boehringer, the purchase marks a major expansion of its capacity within the US which will serve as a springboard for further growth of its CMO business there.
The German group has already made efforts to develop a bioproduction ‘cluster’ on the West Coast; in 2009, it signed a strategic alliance with Californian CMO Avid Bioservices to boost its biologics manufacturing network.
Phil Taylor
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