August 18, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
CHESTERFIELD, United Kingdom – Specialty pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt PLC is investing more than $80 million to build a new campus in New Jersey to support the company’s fast-growing specialty brands. The additional space is expected to provide space for 400 employees by the first quarter of next year.
The new site will be in Bedminster, New Jersey, the company said this morning. The Bedminster facility will allow the company to consolidate its specialty brands operations. Additionally, the new space will allow the company to “co-locate more than 400 commercial and science employees,” mostly involved with research and development and marketing. Although the company did not indicate how many positions will be new versus relocations, Mallinckrodt said potential candidates can view its online portal for job openings in New Jersey. The employees will be involved in the development of autoimmune and rare disease products, as well as the company’s hospital businesses, Mallinckrodt said this morning in a statement. Those areas of its business are considered growth platforms the company is expected to continue development of, it said.
Mark Trudeau, president and chief executive officer of Mallinckrodt, said Bedminster is a good site for Mallinckrodt. He said the site will allow the company to design a work space that will meet the needs of the company. Not only will the site meet development needs, Trudeau said it will also provide an “exceptional working environment” for its employees.
“As we began to transform Mallinckrodt into a specialty pharmaceutical organization, we acquired a base of established operations on the East Coast,” Trudeau said in a statement. “With this base, and recognizing the important concentration of specialty pharmaceutical talent and intellectual capital in the area, we believe consolidating our Specialty Brands organizations in New Jersey provides compelling value. We believe the state will be a great business destination for the company.”
In addition to the New Jersey site, Mallinckrodt said it is continuing its investment in St. Louis. There the company is investing more than $140 million. Recent investment includes the commitment of more than $8 million for expansion of its downtown St. Louis manufacturing facility, as well as a $12 million site addition opened in mid-2015 to increase manufacturing efficiency.
For the past 18 months, Mallinckrodt has involved itself in multiple acquisition deals, including the acquisition of U.K.-based Therakos from The Gores Group for about $1.325 billion that expanded the company’s reach into the hospital market. Earlier this week, the company announced a deal to acquire Statatech Corporation, a regenerative medicine company that develops skin substitute products. Financial terms of that deal were not disclosed. The deal with The Gores Group, as well as others, brought multiple properties in the United States under the Mallinckrodt umbrella, the company said.
Also earlier this year the company snapped up three commercial-stage topical hemostasis drugs, Recothrom Thrombin, PreveLeak Surgical Sealant and RAPLIXA, from The Medicines Company (MDCO).