A shuttered Milanese manufacturing site with a storied history is getting a new lease on life, thanks to a nearly half-a-billion-dollar investment from Italian drugmaker Chiesi.
As part of an ongoing expansion strategy around the globe, Chiesi announced this week that it will invest 430 million euros (roughly $464 million) to build a new facility for inhalers and other health products in the Nerviano municipality of the Italian city of Milan, while also revitalizing a decades old production site there.
The cash, which will be spread out between 2025 and 2030, will help redevelop a 124,000-square-meter (1.33 million-square-foot) industrial area at the site, which the Italian drugmaker ultimately aims to convert into an “international center of excellence.”
The upcoming plant, expected to create around 300 new jobs by 2029, will ultimately be used to crank out Chiesi’s sustainable carbon minimal inhalers, as well as dry powder inhalers and sterile biological products, the company said in a Wednesday release.
Once fully up and running, Chiesi said it expects the site to sport more than 3,000 square meters (32,292 square feet) of lab space, plus a photovoltaic park that will provide enough solar power to ensure the plant can meet its own energy needs. The industrial facility is located along 20,000 square meters (215,278 square feet) of woods, which will experience a regeneration project under Chiesi’s stewardship, the company added.
The Milanese production site was first established in 1965, according to Chiesi’s press release. The location was originally used as an oncology research center by the Italian drugmaker Farmitalia Carlo Erba—later bought out by Pfizer in the early 2000s—and changed hands multiple times through the years before its ultimate closure in 2024.
"We chose Nerviano for its strategic location and the potential of the industrial area, which we will transform into a center of excellence for the production of next-generation inhalers," Chiesi’s CEO, Giuseppe Accogli, said in a statement. "This investment strengthens our presence in Italy and Europe, consolidates our leadership in the sector, and creates new growth opportunities for the local community.”
The Italian outlay represents part of Chiesi’s broader “global industrial strategy,” which includes ongoing investments in the company’s home city of Parma, Italy, as well as places like France and Brazil.
Last May, for instance, Chiesi said it would invest 10 million euros (then around $10.8 million) to create 100 new jobs at a manufacturing facility in Chaussee Saint-Victor, France, where the drugmaker also churns out treatments for respiratory disorders.
More recently, Chiesi in September heralded the launch of its so-called Biotech Center of Excellence in Parma, where the company is focused on developing and producing monoclonal antibodies, enzymes and other proteins. Chiesi is positioning the site as a one-stop-shop for drug substance production from mammalian cells all the way through final packaging and figures the facility will help smooth the transition from development to manufacturing.
Overall, Chiesi will invest around 400 million euros in the Parma biotech center, according to a press release last fall.