Pfizer breaks ground on new $200m biologics manufacturing plant in Massachusetts

The five-story, 175,000-square-foot addition to Pfizer’s Andover campus is expected to be completed in January 2019.

The facility will house about 75 employees who will produce vaccines and complex biologics.

It will feature five independent manufacturing suites intended to support Pfizer’s biologics research effort.

Pfizer said the new facility will employ flexible design for next generation manufacturing strategies as well as use single-use bioreactors and disposable process technologies.

The company’s Andover campus currently features seven buildings which house laboratories, clinical and commercial manufacturing suites, and support areas.

The campus also includes a multiproduct manufacturing plant, designed to enable clinical and commercial products to be manufactured simultaneously.

Pfizer R&D senior vice president, BioTherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences John Ludwig said: "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.

"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."

Pfizer already has a research and development hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company employs about 2,000 people throughout the state.

Image: Pfizer World Headquarters New York City. Photo: courtesy of Norbert Nagel, Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany.