April 8, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new La Jolla, Calif. offices on March 25. Joining the ceremony were Roger Guillemin and William Brody of the Salk Institute.
In opening remarks, Brody also said GSK’s presence was welcomed by The Scripps Research Institute , University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and others.
“The most difficult for us to do, working with pharma, is getting a commitment that exceeds three years,” said Brody, president of the Salk Institute, at the ceremony. “The second most difficult problem has been the rotating management structure. Good people get promoted and leave.”
This closely follows an announcement on April 6 that GSK was establishing a new vaccines research and development center in Rockville, Md. That facility is one of three the company operates worldwide, the other two in Rixensart, Belgium and Siena, Italy.
GSK has had a relationship with San Diego for some time. In April 2013 the company cut a deal with La Jolla-based Avalon Ventures to help fund and start up about 10 biotech companies. GSK provides up to $465 million to finance the companies and Avalon created up to $30 million in funding. To date four companies have been developed, with three of them announced. Two more are projected to be formed this summer.
The new San Diego area GSK office is designed to create closer connections with local biotech companies and research institutes. The office is also essentially GSK’s West Coast office. It will only employ about five to seven people.
“We’re doing more on the West Coast, and our collaboration with Avalon is going well,” said Damien McDevitt, who heads the new office, in a statement. “We’ve also got a number of partnerships in San Diego and the (San Francisco) Bay Area and Seattle. So this is our base now, to support not just San Diego, but the rest of the West Coast.”
The news is undoubtedly good for biotech companies and universities on the West Coast. Unfortunately, GSK has been laying off people in other parts of the U.S. and around the world as it restructures its operations. On Mar. 18 the company announced it was laying off 150 people in Pennsylvania. In January it announced 1,000 layoffs in its China operations. It also was cutting 900 jobs at its Research Triangle Park, N.C. research and development campus.
A major part of GSK’s restructuring involves a joint venture with Basel, Switzerland’s Novartis AG . GSK and Novartis are creating a joint consumer healthcare business. Novartis bought GSK’s oncology products for $14.5 billion and GSK bought Novartis’ vaccine business for $7.1 billion, minus its influenza business.
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