Positive clinical trial data for Dendreon’s lead candidate Provenge (sipuleucel-T) has been a trigger for the company to begin ramping up its in-house manufacturing operations.
A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that in the past week Dendreon has signed leases for two facilities. The first lease, signed at the end of July, is for 160,000 square feet of rentable space in Atlanta, Georgia, US.
Dendreon has entered into an initial 10.5-year lease, split into two renewal terms of five years. The lease will begin when the facility is substantially complete, which Dendreon believes will be in the first half of 2010.
A purchase option, which must be exercised before March 2011, is included in the lease agreement. Furthermore, the lease contains a 10-year expansion option to add 47,000 sq ft to the facility. Aggregate rent payable for the building shell under the initial lease term is $6.7m (€4.7m).
A week after entering into a lease agreement for the Atlanta facility Dendreon inked a similar deal for an 184,000 sq ft site in Orange County, California, US.
This also has an initial 10-year lease, with an option to buy in the first three, and aggregate rent payable on the existing warehouse property is $13.6m. Dendreon will use the site as a manufacturing facility once build-out is complete.
Expansion of existing site
Construction is taking place at Dendreon’s existing 158,242 sq ft manufacturing facility in Morris Planes, New Jersey, which it leased in August 2005.
The construction is the second phase of a three part plan and will add quality control laboratories, a data centre, training areas, infrastructure and offices. This is expected to be complete by December.
Furthermore, phase III of the construction plan is due to be substantially complete by April 2010. The guaranteed maximum cost of the New Jersey work is $50.3m.