Germany’s Merck KGaA has announced new plans to create a “major hub” for its North American life science business as it prepares to build a new campus in Burlington, MA, but will be leaving its former Billerica base.
The 280,000-square-foot facility (with an option to add an extra 70,000 square feet in the future) will cost around $115 million and should be up and ready by mid-2017. The facility will include a “customer collaboration” lab and training center, according to the company’s statement.
The new center will however see all 850 Billerica-based employees of MilliporeSigma, the U.S. unit of Merck, move into the facility–replacing its Billerica campus with what will be bigger and more “state-of-the-art” digs.
MilliporeSigma added however that it will maintain its other North American life science hub in St. Louis, Missouri.
“This new and more expansive MilliporeSigma campus gives us a unique, multiuse life science hub in the United States–one that provides our employees and customers with a sustainable and collaborative working environment,” said Udit Batra, CEO of MilliporeSigma, in the statement.
This campus will house what the company calls an “M Lab Collaboration Center,” which is essentially a shared space for its scientists and engineers work together with their life science customers.
The M Lab Collaboration Center will be one of 9 centers worldwide created specifically for collaboration, which includes training and customer experiments. Other locations will include Brazil, China, France, India, Singapore and South Korea, the biotech said.
“For nearly a decade, Merck KGaA has built a significant presence in Massachusetts and we are extremely pleased to support their expansion in Burlington through the MassWorks Infrastructure Program,” added Gov. Charlie Baker in the statement.
“Building long-lasting public-private partnerships is vital to growing our economy, and the MilliporeSigma campus represents significant investment and confidence in our shared future as a global life science center.”
Merck has a number of businesses and units which focus on manufacturing, biosimilars, consumer health and life science R&D. The company has recently been ramping up its R&D focus, with a near $900 million deal struck with Pfizer a few years back to further development of its checkpoint inhibitor candidate.
By Ben Adams
Source: Fierce Biotech
Airnov provides critical healthcare industries with high-quality, controlled atmosphere packaging, to protect their products from moisture and oxygen. The business has manufacturing facilities in the USA, France, China and India and employs around 700 people.
Takeda of Japan has partnered with Hong Kong-based Hutchmed, gaining the commercial rights to colorectal cancer drug fruquintinib outside of China for $400 million up front, plus $730 million in potential milestone payments. Takeda also will help develop fruquintinib, which can be applied to subtypes of refractory metastatic colorectal cancer, regardless of biomarker status, the companies said.
On April 3, Scangos, who’s been chief executive officer at Vir since the start of 2017, will hand over the reins to Marianne De Backer, Ph.D. De Backer comes over from Bayer, where she currently heads up pharmaceutical strategy, business development and licensing. Alongside her CEO appointment, De Backer is set to join Vir’s board of directors, the company said Wednesday.