Amgen plans on investing $365 million in the site, including the introduction of 400 new job openings through the operations of its pharmaceutical packaging and assembly facility.
Amgen, with its headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California, is one of a number of life sciences companies spreading their networks across the United States. Looking to expand outside Golden State borders, the west coast giant announced in late June that it had chosen New Albany, Ohio as the location for its next plant. On Friday, Amgen announced that it had broken ground on the “digitally advanced” smart facility.
The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved the allocation of $15 million in state tax credits over the next 15 years in support of the new facility. The City of New Albany also gave Amgen a comprehensive property tax abatement for the same duration. In return, Amgen plans on investing $365 million in the site, including the introduction of 400 new job openings through the operations of its pharmaceutical packaging and assembly facility.
Despite the company’s roots in ‘80’s California, Amgen CEO Bob Bradway actually grew up nearby in Upper Arlington, Ohio. “I get to town any chance I get,” said Bradway in The Columbus Dispatch, a local newspaper. “Like anybody who grew up in Columbus, I’m a Buckeye through and through.” He also stated that New Albany was chosen as the new plant’s location for its affordability, hospitable business climate and access to a diverse workforce.
To that end, Amgen is also a founding member of the organization OneTen, a coalition of large companies formed to address racial inequality in the workforce by hiring up to one million Black Americans into family-sustaining careers over the next decade. Currently, the company employs approximately 14,000 people in the United States and a total of 25,000 people worldwide.
The 270,000 square-foot factory was dubbed ‘Amgen Ohio’, and is expected to have a $41 million annual payroll, which includes technician and engineering positions as well as roles in quality control and administration. As one of only 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it’s no surprise that Amgen’s $123 billion market capitalization is fueling a projected annual payroll that averages out to roughly $100,000 per year, per employee.
“These will be well-paying, attractive positions,” Bradway said ahead of today’s groundbreaking. “This is a mission-critical site for us. This provides the increased capacity we need and enables us to mitigate risk from single-source packaging.”
Sandra Rodriguez-Toledo, vice president of site operations for the new facility, suggested that the 400 proposed positions were only the beginning. “We will continue to open more roles in the future for technicians and engineers, along with quality assurance, quality control, administrative and management positions,” she said.
Slated to open in 2024, the new facility will be following in the footsteps of Amgen’s previously successful foray into Puerto Rico, assembling and packaging the syringes and vials necessary to support increasing demand for the company’s medicines. As Amgen focuses on the development of treatments for diseases with a high unmet medical need, such as cancer, arthritis, anemia and cardiovascular disease, this support is likely to become only more critical in the future.
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