In a bid to deepen its manufacturing foothold in the U.S., Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in April pledged production and infrastructure investments surpassing $7 billion across North Carolina and its native Empire State.
Now, more than half a year later, the plan for one of the company’s new facilities—a former magazine factory in Saratoga Springs, New York—is coming into focus.
Regeneron plans to invest $2 billion in the Saratoga Springs site, which is located a little more than two and a half hours north of the company’s Tarrytown, New York, headquarters by car.
The project will cover the design, reconstruction and fit of the facility, which formerly operated as a printed material manufacturer, according to a recent press release from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announcing the outlay. All told, the undertaking is expected to create at least 1,000 new full-time jobs at the company when complete.
The site was previously owned by Quad Graphics and cranked out popular print media like Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly, local news outlets have reported. Quad closed the site in May, citing volatility in the magazine business.
By souping up the Saratoga Springs facility—which sits on a more than 1 million-square-foot property—Regeneron is poised to nearly double its existing production capacity in New York, according to the governor's office.
The site will place particular emphasis on manufacturing of drugs for infectious diseases and cancer, the release continued.
“As Regeneron continues to drive forward our mission of using the power of science to bring forward life-changing medicines we can improve the lives of those in New York and around the world,” the company’s CEO, Leonard Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D., said in a statement. “In this pursuit, we look forward to continuing to fuel economic development and create meaningful, well-paying jobs that strengthen communities across the state.”
Regeneron revealed the acquisition of the Saratoga Springs site back in April, noting at the time that it planned to use the facility for “production support activities and, potentially, additional manufacturing capacity.”
The site purchase formed part of a broader constellation of domestic manufacturing commitments announced by Regeneron earlier this year. Elsewhere in New York, the company is growing its Tarrytown campus while also building out a new fill-finish facility in Rensselaer.
Meanwhile, down in North Carolina, Regeneron is paying CDMO Fujifilm Biotechnologies more than $3 billion over 10 years for bulk drug product capacity at its sprawling new manufacturing campus in Holly Springs. The recent Fujifilm tie-up is tipped to more than double Regeneron’s overall U.S. production capacity, the company said back in April.
The series of manufacturing-minded moves aren’t unique to Regeneron, as biopharma players of all stripes have sought to get ahead of the Trump administration’s threatened pharmaceutical import tariffs. One of the key goals of the administration’s trade strategy is to encourage more production in the U.S.
Over the course of this year, many of the world's largest pharma companies have revealed U.S. manufacturing outlays, including Australia's CSL with its own announcement on Tuesday.