Bristol-Myers Squibb Selects Massachusetts Site for New Biologics Facility

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS, New York, NY, www.bms.com) selected Devens,Massachusetts as the site for its new, large-scale, multiproduct, bulkbiologics facility. Earlier this year, BMS's board approved $660million to build the new plant.

Construction is expected to begin in September 2006, and the facilityis projected to be operationally complete in 2009.  Commercialproduction of biologic compounds is anticipated to begin in 2011. Onceoperational, the site initially will require 350 employees, with amodular design that can accommodate up to 550 staff.

The Devens facility will support increased production capacity for"Orencia," (abatacept), recently approved to treat rheumatoidarthritis, and other biologic compounds currently in development,including BMS's investigational treatments for solid-organ transplantrejection and certain types of cancers.

BMS currently manufactures biologic compounds in a company-ownedfacility in Syracuse, New York and finishes and packages biologiccompounds in Manati, Puerto Rico. The Syracuse site, which was notdesigned to accommodate large-scale commercial production will serve as a center for process development and early-product launchfor the company's biologic compounds, said BMS in a release. The Manatifacility will continue to finish and package biologics. In March, BMSannounced plans to invest $200 million to expand this facility.

BMS also has third-party manufacturing agreements with Lonza (Basel,Switzerland, www.lonza.com)and Celltrion Inc. (Incheon, Korea, www.celltrion.com).Lonza's Portsmouth, New Hampshire facility recently received approvalfrom the US Food and Drug Administration to manufacture Orencia.