As AGC Biologics looks to recalibrate its CDMO business, the Seattle-based manufacturer is planning to part ways with a pair of facilities in Colorado.
AGC has started a “structured process” to seek buyers for its large-scale mammalian production sites in Boulder and Longmont, Colorado, a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma.
“This allows us to sharpen our company’s focus on core strengths, while addressing the opportunity of the increased demand for U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure,” the spokesperson explained in an emailed statement.
The move is expected to affect around 278 workers, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing viewed by Fierce Pharma.
AGC plans to end employment for “many of these employees” Nov. 15 and expects to have completed the layoff process by Dec. 31, according to the filing.
The move will primarily impact workers in Colorado as well as a handful of employees who supported the facilities from other U.S. locations. The majority of the projected job cuts in the WARN notice fall into the categories of engineering, manufacturing and quality.
AGC’s decision to exit its large-scale mammalian plants is expected to help the company better focus on its bread-and-butter businesses of midscale mammalian manufacturing, microbial and cell and gene therapy, the company’s spokesperson said.
The company will continue mammalian and microbial production operations at its global headquarters in Seattle. Outside the U.S., AGC also operates mammalian sites in Copenhagen and in Chiba, Japan, with plans to introduce mammalian capabilities at its second Japanese facility in Yokohama in the future.
Mammalian manufacturing describes the process by which living cells are fed into bioreactors and grown to produce therapeutic proteins. The process underpins the production of a range of biologic drugs, including vaccines and cell and gene therapies. AGC, for its part, utilizes its mammalian capacity to produce and develop biologic drug substance for preclinical, clinical and commercial projects.
AGC also boasts a microbial, mRNA and pDNA production site in Heidelberg, Germany, as well as a cell and gene therapy and viral vector facility in Milan.
As for the affected plants, the company’s Boulder facility—acquired from AstraZeneca in 2020—spans 178,000 square feet and houses two 20,000-liter stainless steel bioreactors. The Longmont site currently covers six buildings totaling 622,000 square feet and offers close to 160 acres for additional development, according to AGC’s website.
With much of the industry focused on onshoring manufacturing to the U.S. during the second Trump administration, AGC figures the market is ripe to divest the pair of Colorado plants.
“These facilities and the experienced employees operating the sites represent a significant opportunity for companies seeking to rapidly establish or expand their U.S. manufacturing footprint,” the AGC spokesperson said. “We are confident that this is the right moment to place these valuable assets into the hands of a new owner who can maximize their potential.”
The decision wasn’t entirely unexpected. Last year, AGC telegraphed 68 layoffs in Longmont as part of a plan to idle most operations at the company's facility. At the time, AGC attributed the move to a volatile biopharma funding environment, noting that it would rethink its strategy at the site before considering a sale.
News of the strategy pivot in Longmont came a little less than a month before AGC announced the appointment of a new CEO in Lonza veteran Alberto Santagostino. In an interview with Fierce Pharma last fall, Santagostino said that under his stewardship, AGC would look to redefine itself as a more welcoming contract manufacturing partner by “taking what is already good [at the company] at scale.”
He specifically singled out AGC’s capabilities in microbial and cell and gene manufacturing, noting that he believed the company’s strengths in those areas were both underappreciated and “untapped.”
Still, Santagostino suggested that despite growing pains at the Longmont facility—which AGC purchased from Novartis in 2021—the plant still had a place in the company pantheon. He also noted that major layoffs at AGC were unlikely, instead cautioning that the company might have to make minor adjustments moving forward as part of the natural flow of business.