Pfizer’s $200 Million Facility in Massachusetts Will Create 75 Permanent Jobs
June 16, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
New York-based Pfizer broke ground on a new biologics clinical manufacturing plant today in Andover, Massachusetts.
Pfizer is investing more than $200 million in the 175,000-square-feet facility, which will be used to manufacture complex biologics and vaccines. It will be five stories tall and is projected to open by January 2019.
The company is planning to hire 75 new employees at the facility. Pfizer employs approximately 2,000 people in Massachusetts.
Pfizer has its Research and Development hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its Andover campus currently is made up of seven buildings, including laboratories, clinical and commercial manufacturing suites, and support units. The new facility will have five independent manufacturing suites.
“The expansion of Pfizer’s presence in Andover will provide state-of-the-art manufacturing to help bring new medicines and vaccines to the patients we serve,” said John Ludwig, senior vice president, BioTherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences in Pfizer R&D, in a statement. “Andover is a crucial part of our global footprint for both clinical and commercial manufacturing, and we believe it provides an attractive location for growth in the coming years.”
In April, Andover’s boards approved tax breaks worth $2.9 million to lock in Pfizer’s continued expansion in the area. At that time, 150 jobs were being floated. The town’s Board of Selectmen, Planning Board and Finance Committee all recommended the five-year Tax-Increment Financing (TIF) plan.
“We give up taxes in the short run, but in the long run there is a financial benefit,” said Joanne Marden, a member of the Finance Committee to the Andover Townsman.
The TIF was expected to create about $3.9 million for Andover over the next 10 years. TIFs typically give a company property tax exemptions based on increasing value for up to 20 years. The Andover TIF plan covers up to five years. The original proposal was set at 100 percent for years 1 through 3, and at 65 percent for years 4 and 5, and was capped at $2.9 million.
Pfizer was considering two other possible locations for expansion. One in Grange Castle, Ireland, and the other in Chesterfield, Missouri.
“Pfizer’s decision to expand their campus in Andover speaks to the Commonwealth’s continued global leadership in biopharma and our administration’s support of the growing advanced manufacturing sector,” said Massachusetts’ Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito in a statement. “We are pleased to have Pfizer operating in Andover, Boston and Cambridge and look forward to their ongoing contributions to the Massachusetts’s economy and wellbeing of our citizens.”
In addition to the 75 permanent jobs eventually expected to be created, the project is estimated to bring 200 temporary construction jobs to the location, which already has 1,200 employees.
In July 2015, Pfizer indicated it was expanding its lease agreement with a subsidiary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which could create a unified Pfizer campus in Kendall Square, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As part of that expansion, Pfizer will lease 500,000 square feet at 610 Main Street in Kendall Square, which will continue to be research and development space.