This week saw both Gilead Sciences and Amgen start to fulfil pledges to step up capital investments in new US facilities.
Gilead has broken ground on a manufacturing hub at its Foster City site in California that it said would become a “cornerstone of its US growth and innovation strategy” and is part of a planned $32 billion investment plan for the country.
Amgen, meanwhile, announced plans to invest more than $600 million in a new centre for science and innovation at its global headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California, with construction due to start before the end of this month.
Gilead and Amgen are among the lengthening list of big pharma companies that have pledged billions of dollars in new builds and upgrades to manufacturing and R&D facilities in the US in the coming years in response to pressure from President Donald Trump to onshore and reshore manufacturing and avoid tariffs on imported medicines.
Gilead chief executive Daniel O’Day said the company has “multiple construction projects underway, all of which will generate thousands of American jobs and help to drive U.S. leadership in global biopharma innovation.”
The new five-storey, 180,000 sq. ft, Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Technical Development Centre (NTDC) will house technical development and manufacturing teams and will offer flexible pilot lab space and advanced digital infrastructure, including robotics and real-time digital monitoring, according to Gilead.
It will be used to support “next-generation biologics across Gilead’s pipeline,” said the company, which reckons that its investment in US facilities will create more than 3,000 jobs. The announcement comes after it abandoned plans to expand a biologics manufacturing facility in Oceanside, California, last year.
Amgen said its new facility “is designed to bring together researchers, engineers and scientists across disciplines to enhance collaboration and accelerate the discovery of next-generation therapeutics for patients with the most serious diseases.” It will also feature advanced automation and digital capabilities, and will create “hundreds of US jobs.”
The company said the new facility comes alongside other recent investments in the US, including a $900 million expansion of its manufacturing facility in Central Ohio and a $1 billion investment to build a second manufacturing plant in Holly Springs, North Carolina.
Last month, Roche also started work on a $700 million manufacturing facility in North Carolina, part of a promised $50 billion investment in the US.
