With $10 billion pledged to beef up its U.S. operations through 2035, AbbVie has already unveiled plans for a new drug ingredient plant in its home state of Illinois and an expansion of its bioresearch center in Massachusetts.
Now, the Chicago-based pharma is heading southwest as it charts the next leg of its stateside investment tour.
Under the $10 billion U.S. outlay the company telegraphed last April, AbbVie is set to acquire a device manufacturing facility in Tempe, Arizona, from packaging and drug delivery pro West Pharmaceutical Services. The deal is expected to significantly grow the reach and capacity of AbbVie’s drug delivery device manufacturing operations, the company said in a Jan. 12 press release.
AbbVie said it expects the plant purchase to go through by the middle of this year. Once the acquisition is in the books, AbbVie plans to hire roughly 200 employees at the site. The company noted that it anticipates spending more than $175 million to acquire and modernize the site as well as to integrate it into AbbVie’s globetrotting production network.
Through the deal, AbbVie will get its hands on facilities equipped with multiple production lines, as well as 3.5 mL on-body injector technology the Chicago pharma figures will support manufacturing of both its current and next-generation drugs in both immunology and neuroscience indications.
"Over the next decade, AbbVie is investing more than $10 billion in capital to broadly support innovation and expand our manufacturing capabilities and capacity in the U.S.," Rob Michael, AbbVie’s chief executive, said in a statement. "With this investment, AbbVie is strengthening our manufacturing capabilities, ensuring we are well-positioned to develop and deliver next-generation medicines that make a remarkable impact on patients' lives."
AbbVie joined the U.S. investment parade early last year as the Trump administration threatened to impose tariffs on pharma imports. The company’s $10 billion pledge—to be deployed over a span of 10 years—has been designed to support the drugmaker’s current growth plans and help it expand into new areas like obesity.
A portion of the sum will also be used to stand up four new U.S. production plants devoted to active pharmaceutical ingredients, drug product, peptides and devices, AbbVie Chief Financial Officer Scott Reents explained last year.
AbbVie has already divulged details on several other projects under the investment, unveiling designs on a $195 million API facility in North Chicago last summer. And, in late September, the company announced that it had kicked off work on a $70 million expansion of its bioresearch center in Worcester, Massachusetts, which carries out both manufacturing and R&D work on biologic drugs.