Shire had big ambitions when it built a $400 million biologics plant in Ireland it said would help achieve its “ambition of becoming the world’s leading biotechnology company.” Well, Shire no longer exists. It was absorbed into Japan’s Takeda, which now intends to sell the plant with 200 employees.
The company said in an emailed statement that a review of manufacturing facilities after its $60 billion buyout of Shire found it had excess capacity, so it decided to “divest its biologics facility in Dunboyne.” It said it intends to sell the nearly-new plant as a going concern and does not intend any layoffs.
Takeda said it is shopping the facility around and, given the capabilities of the plant and its workforce, is confident it will be “an attractive asset” to a buyer.
The company pointed out it will keep other facilities in Ireland, including its site in Grange Castle near Dublin.
It last year opened a $42.8 million plant at the Grange Castle site to produce its oral multiple myeloma drug Ninlaro. Takeda also is investing about $30.5 million on a standalone modular cell therapy facility and adding about 70 jobs at the site for the production of a novel stem cell therapy.
By Eric Palmer
Source: Fierce Pharma
A monkeypox outbreak is emerging in the U.S. and Europe, and at least one country is amping up countermeasure preparedness. Bavarian Nordic has secured a contract with an unnamed European country to supply its smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in Europe, in response to the emergence of monkeypox cases, the Danish company said Thursday.
Moderna’s recent chief financial officer debacle—in which Jorge Gomez departed on his second day on the job—raised questions about the company’s hiring process given its rush to global biopharma prominence. The most obvious one: How was it possible for Gomez to be hired when he was under investigation by his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona of Charlotte, N.C.
Merck & Co. is plucking a cancer project from the branch of Chinese-based Kelun Pharmaceutical for up to $1.4 billion, but details from the New Jersey-based Big Pharma have been hard to come by. The deal, first disclosed Monday on the Shenzhen stock exchange, has Merck handing over $47 million in upfront cash in exchange for ex-China rights to a “macromolecular tumor project.”
