100+ Jobs Gone as Pfizer to Shut Down Boulder Facility

100+ Jobs Gone as Pfizer Intends to Shut Down Boulder Facility June 23, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

BOULDER, Colo. – Pfizer will shutter a Boulder, Colo. manufacturing facility eliminating 100 positions, the Daily Camera of Boulder reported this morning.

Pfizer gained the site through its 2015 $15 billion acquisition of Illinois-based Hospira, Inc. Pfizer said the Colorado facility was targeted for closure after an analysis of its sites showed the facility was being underutilized, the Daily Camera said. The shuttering of the site will not happen immediately, but will gradually close operations over the next few years and completely shut down by 2019.

There was no information available if Pfizer planned to offer the Boulder employees the opportunity to move to different facilities across the country.

When it acquired Hospira, Pfizer gained several manufacturing facilities across the United States, including the one in Colorado, as well as Austin, Texas, Buffalo, N.Y. and McPherson, Kan.

Pfizer is not the only company to pull out of the Boulder area. The Daily Camera noted that Amgen also shuttered some of its facilities in the Longmont and Boulder areas. However, AstraZeneca snapped up Amgen’s Boulder real estate.

Citing the Boulder Economic Council, the Daily Camera reported Boulder County is home to 125 bioscience companies, such as Clovis Oncology . There are approximately 4,700 people employed by the Boulder life sciences industry, the Daily Camera said. One strong supporter of the life sciences in the area is the University of Colorado's extensive bioscience programs.

Pfizer is in the midst of a restructuring that could see the company divide itself into multiple entities. Ultimately Pfizer could be comprised of three units—Global Innovation Products (GIP) business, and Vaccines Oncology and Consumer (VOC) business. Last year, Ian Read, chief executive officer of Pfizer, said a decision would likely be made at the end of 2016. He reiterated that earlier this year after the Allergan deal fell through.

While Pfizer shuts down the Colorado site, earlier this month the company broke ground on a new biologics clinical manufacturing plant in Andover, Mass. The 175,000-square-feet facility will be used to manufacture complex biologics and vaccines. The site is expected to be five stories tall and is projected to open by January 2019, about the same time the Boulder site will be winding down its operations. The company is planning to hire 75 new employees at the facility.

And although it is looking at a breakup, Pfizer has maintained an aggressive M&A practice, recently acquiring Palo Alto, California-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals for $5.2 billion. As a result of the acquisition, Pfizer gained Anacor’s lead project, crisaborole, a non-steroidal topical PDE4 inhibitor to treat mid-to-moderate atopic dermatitis, more commonly known as eczema. In May, Pfizer struck a deal with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based WAVE Life Sciences to develop up to five programs from discovery to clinical candidate selection.

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