GlaxoSmithKline Slaps "For Sale" Sign on Huge Pittsburgh Campus

GlaxoSmithKline Slaps ‘For Sale’ Sign on Huge Pittsburgh Campus
October 2, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

PITTSBURGH – Six months after closing down its regional headquarters in Moon Township, Penn., GlaxoSmithKline is putting the 192,000 square-foot Pittsburgh-area office up for sale, the Pittsburgh Business Journal reported this morning.

In April GSK announced it was closing the offices and eliminated 274 positions as part of a five-year restructuring plan expected to save the company $1.5 billion. Some of the employees at the Pittsburgh facility will be relocated to a GSK facility to Parsippany, N.J., the company said in an April statement. The transition is expected to be complete in 2016 and the company is hoping the facility will be sold by the end of 2015. GSK maintained a presence in the Pittsburgh area for approximately 40 years.

London-based GSK acquired the complex in 2002 for $19.4 million. The company did not provide a listing price for the property, the Journal said. However, marketing materials describe the property as “a well-located Class A office asset below replacement cost.”

In October 2014, GSK announced major restructuring plans over the next five years after the company saw operating profit decline by 37 percent during a nine-month period. The decline occurred in part due to declining revenue from its blockbuster asthma and COPD drug Advair, which is facing competition from AstraZeneca PLC 's Symbicort and Merck & Co. ’s Dulera. In 2014, Advair was dropped by Express Scripts Holding Co., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefits manager, in favor of the less expensive offerings.

In addition to the restructuring plan, earlier this year GSK and Novartis struck a deal that saw the Swiss-based Novartis acquire GSK’s oncology line for $14.5 billion and GSK snapped up Novartis’ vaccines business, except the flu vaccine component, for $7.1 billion. On April 2 of this year, GSK announced it was establishing a new global center for vaccines research and development in Rockville, Md. The company is expecting this new R&D site to drive innovation and spur new vaccine discoveries.

While GSK is selling off its Pennsylvania facility, it’s in the process of expanding other sites, including a manufacturing facility in Zebulon, N.C. The company expanded the facility and is hiring more than 100 people as it ramps up production of its next generation asthma drug Ellipta. The new hires are needed due to the company’s addition of another assembly line to produce several of the company’s asthma drugs, including Advair Diskus, Ellipta, Breo and Anora. In total, the site produces more than 30 GSK brands. The Zebulon site has been expected to begin manufacturing the pain-reliving drug Panadol, an acetaminophen tablet sold mostly in Europe.

Earlier this year, GSK, which has had a manufacturing presence in eastern North Carolina for more than 30 years, expanded the Zebulon facility by about 65,000 square feet to accommodate a new assembly line to manufacture Ellipta. The new addition is expected to be ready for use in 2017.

The majority of GSK’s U.S. employees are located in Philadelphia and Research Triangle Park, N.C.

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