Gilead buys manufacturing plant from Genentech
pharmafile | August 9, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Genentech, Gilead, biologics
Roche unit Genentech has agreed to sell a clinical manufacturing plant in California to Gilead Sciences.
The 70,000 sq. ft. clinical plant in Oceanside makes supplies of experimental drugs for clinical testing, and is designed and equipped to produce biologic compounds for toxicological, phase I and phase II clinical studies. Genentech says these functions will move to its headquarters in San Francisco.
No jobs will be lost as a result of the deal, according to Genentech which says it remains committed to a separate commercial manufacturing unit in Oceanside which employs around 300 staff and makes key products such as cancer drugs Avastin (bevacizumab) and Rituxan (rituximab).
For its part, Gilead has pledged to retain 55 people employed at the clinical manufacturing facility, which includes a process development unit employing 30 scientists and a separate manufacturing unit with 25 staff.
Gilead has not disclosed the purchase price, and said the plant should officially change hands sometime in the third quarter of 2011.
The company will use the site to make GS 6624, an investigational monoclonal antibody in phase I testing for various forms of cancer as well as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The Oceanside Clinical Plant (OCP) will also make another antibody that is in preclinical testing, said the firm.
Gilead acquired GS 6624 earlier this year when it bought Arresto Biosciences for $225 million, part of an ongoing strategy to diversify its portfolio and reduce its dependence on HIV medicines, which have been under pressure as a result of cutbacks at state-funded AIDS drug assistance programmes (ADAPs) in the USA. Several of its products are facing patent expirations later this decade.
That deal marked something of a departure for Gilead as it was the first in-licensing of an antibody-based drug. The latest deal with Genentech suggests it may have further ambitions in that area.
Phil Taylor
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