Pfizer in talks on Sandwich site sale
pharmafile | January 30, 2012 | News story | Research and Development | Pfizer, Sandwich
Pfizer has begun talks with a real estate investor to sell its R&D centre in Sandwich.
The site was Pfizer’s main European research centre, but last February the company announced its closure and the loss of thousands of jobs.
A total of 2,400 jobs were to be axed from the Kent site, but the firm recently announced that around an extra 650 jobs would be saved.
This means that 1,500 staff have now been made redundant with 900 jobs being retained, and 650 of those will be staying at Sandwich.
The remaining staff will be relocated to Pfizer’s other UK sites in Cambridgeshire and Surrey.
Pfizer said it was in advanced talks with a consortium led by London & Metropolitan and financed by a major European institutional real estate investor, for the sale of the site.
It commented: “This announcement is a positive milestone in the transition of Discovery Park to becoming an R&D led multiple-use campus with enterprise zone status.”
The Sandwich site was recently designated as a ‘Discovery Park’ to try and attract businesses to the area once Pfizer left the site, but the firm recently said it would keep a larger presence in the Park in order to attract wider investment.
The Conservative MP for Thanet South, Laura Sandys, told the BBC that Pfizer’s talks with the investor: “Means we’ll be able to market the Discovery Park very effectively and ensure that we’ve got a vision for the Enterprise Zone that will attract new jobs and new companies.”
Sandys added that she had been briefed by London and Metropolitan, and said the firm had: “[A] very clear vision about having a strong life-science park that will attract people internationally”.
“They really believe in east Kent and I think that makes a big, big difference,” she concluded.
Pfizer has already negotiated to lease space to three life science companies: Mylan, York Bioscience and Peakdale.
Seven former Pfizer employees have also up a new business on the site to provide outsourcing services for the pharma industry.
Ben Adams
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