AstraZeneca purchases former Amgen US facility
pharmafile | September 15, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Amgen, AstraZeneca, US, biologics, manufacturing, production
AstraZeneca has bolstered its US presence with the purchase of a high-tech biologics manufacturing facility from pharma rival Amgen.
The 300,000-square-foot LakeCentre facility, located in Boulder, Colorado, will increase AstraZeneca’s bulk manufacturing and production capacity, which the company says will support its portfolio of biologics medicines.
Amgen had announced its plans to close the plant in 2014, as part of the company’s moves to cut 4,000 jobs from its workforce. Some 650 Amgen jobs were lost at the plant.
Now AstraZeneca says it plans to begin staffing the facility immediately to support refurbishment and infrastructure improvements. Once complete, the site is expected to be operational and licensed for commercial production by late 2017.
The site could create up to 400 highly skilled jobs, AZ says, and will eventually double the biologics manufacturing capacity in the US “to meet the needs of the maturing AstraZeneca pipeline.” AstraZeneca has a maturing pipeline, with a current stock of more than 120 large molecule drugs. “Currently biologics make up 50% of the company’s pipeline with more than 120 ongoing programmes, including over 30 in clinical development,” a company statement adds.
Pam Cheng, executive vice-president of operations and information technology at AstraZeneca, says: “The addition of the Boulder facility will support the progression of biotech drug candidates across our main therapeutic areas as we continue to bring innovative new treatments to patients. This site will play an important role in our future commercial production and give AstraZeneca and MedImmune, our global biologics research and development arm, the flexibility and capacity to meet the needs of our rapidly growing biologics portfolio.”
The facility adds to the expansion of AstraZeneca’s biologics manufacturing capabilities, following the planned biologics manufacturing investment in Sweden, announced in May, and the expansion in Frederick, Maryland, announced in November 2014.
Yasmita Kumar
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