Shire selling Baxalta site in Austria once earmarked to make hemophilia drug
The Krems site – located about 50km northwest of Vienna – was added to Shire’s manufacturing network following the $32bn acquisition of Baxalta last June.
But according to the facility transaction services company PharmaBioSource, the 340,000 sq ft site is now for sale, something Shire confirmed to Biopharma-Reporter.
A spokesperson said it had “vacated the facility by the end of December 2016 and is engaging in a suitable buyer for the facility” after suspending ongoing work there in November.
The plant had been in start-up mode, so no product was being made there, we were told.
“We seek to minimise the impact of this to the 65 employees at the facility as far as possible, and look to offer them other opportunities within our local organisation.
“Some of these roles are project resources and will be directed to other projects. Where this is not possible, we will provide our employees with the necessary support.”
The site once manufactured a number of Baxter International's vaccines, including Influject. But after the vaccine unit was sold to Pfizer in 2014, Baxalta – fresh from its spin-out from Baxter – said in June 2015 it intended to begin manufacturing an undisclosed blood clotting drug at Krems in 2018, and announced it was investing €138m to expand and modernise the site.
Austria
Shire’s other facilities in Vienna and Orth an der Donau will remain operational: “We continue to see growth for the products manufactured in Austria and have identified enough capacity within our existing footprint for the upcoming years.”
Shire has begun assessing its post-merger network of 17 manufacturing sites and in November announced it was closing an ex-Baxalta plasma fractionating facility in Los Angeles, US.
Despite these two closures, the firm continues to construct a $400m biologics plant in County Meath, Ireland.
