Pfizer Expects to Hire 80 New Staffers After Completion of $200 Million R&D Facility
June 28, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Pfizer plans to hire about 80 new staffers when it completes construction of its new research-and-development campus in Chesterfield, Missouri.
The company broke ground on the new facility today, which is expected to be completed mid-2019. It will be about 295,000 square feet and will house Pfizer’s BioTherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences group and enabling partners. The focus is on advancing the company’s biologics, vaccines, and gene therapy portfolio by, as the company states, “developing manufacturing processes and dosage forms applying state-of-the-art analytical technologies, conducting non-GMP manufacturing and scale-up studies.”
“We’ve been proud to call Missouri home since 2002,” said John Ludwig, senior vice president of BioTherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences for Pfizer, in a statement. “During this time, we’ve benefitted from the excellent life sciences workforce based in Missouri, and also from a strong partnership with the State, St. Louis County, and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership. All of these were important factors as we sought a new home where we could continue to evolve our business over the coming years.”
The facility will unite 450 R&D workers and the additional staffers to the site, which is a suburb of St. Louis. At the moment, many of those researchers and staffers are spread out over the region, some in rental space in Monsanto’s research center and others at the Missouri Research Park in Weldon Spring. The project has a price tag of about $200 million.
The facility is being built by Clayco and its development subsidiary CRG. According to a November 2016 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, once the construction is finished Pfizer will lease the space from Clayco and CRG. The site is on 32 acres of land.
Missouri and St. Louis County offered Pfizer incentives to locate at the site, including access to $5 million via the Missouri Works Training program if it met job creation thresholds. As part of the package, Pfizer is donating $20,000 to the local Parkway School District in support of STEM education.
“There was a lot of competition for this facility,” said Steve Stenger, St. Louis County Executive, in a statement. “It makes sense an innovative company like Pfizer—that is at the forefront of its industry—recognizes the advantages of expanding in St. Louis County. I think that is a testament to our business-friendly climate and the quality of our workforce in St. Louis County. Our workers are well-educated and tech savvy. They are ready to do the important work that will be done here to save lives around the world.”
Missouri Governor Eric Greitens said in a statement, “This is an important project that will create good-paying jobs for Missourians. We’re proud that Pfizer is investing and growing in Missouri.”
Per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri provided $2 million to Pfizer for retraining based on 1,000 employees in the area. In addition, St. Louis County had given Pfizer a $6.7 million property tax break.
In a nearby area, Pfizer owns Meridian Medical Technologies, with facilities in Brentwood and Maryland Heights. In 2013, they employed about 300 people, and manufacture the EpiPen for Mylan at those locations.
“We looked at opportunities on the West Coast, East Coast, the Research Triangle in North Carolina,” Ludwig told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently. “This was the right decision for Pfizer to make. The trained workforce was already here.”