Pfizer plans to invest $5bn across the US, begins with $465m facility
The new sterile injectable facility will create more than 450 jobs in Portage, Kalamazoo County – joining the 2,200 Pfizer employees currently working in the city.
According to the press release, the $465m (€397m) facility will “be one of the most technically advanced sterile injectable pharmaceutical production facilities in the world”.
The facility will include multiple, self-contained modular manufacturing lines, which will allow each line, in each module, to work in isolation from other manufacturing lines.
Ground-breaking on the project is expected to take place in spring 2019 and construction is planned to be completed in 2021. Production at the facility was noted to begin in 2024, contingent on regulatory approval.
Pfizer's plant in Portage currently produces sterile injectable, liquids and semi-solid medicines, and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
The new development in Portage has been supported at the state level by tax breaks worth $10.5m and an additional $1m ‘performance-based grant’ agreed by the Michigan Strategic Fund Board.
More to come
A spokesperson for Pfizer outlined to us that this is the first of more such projects, “Following passage of the US tax reform, we announced that over the next five years, we plan to invest approximately $5bn in capital projects in the US, including the strengthening of our manufacturing presence in the US.”
The spokesperson continued, “We expect to invest approximately $1.1bn in Kalamazoo County – which is in addition to the $1 billion we have invested in the site over the past decade with tax reform having a favourable influence on our investments in Kalamazoo.”
The spokesperson did not reveal in what particular projects the total $5bn will be invested.
One of President Trump’s main calling cards for the pharmaceutical industry has been to return manufacturing to the US and Pfizer’s actions, spurred by the tax reform, corroborate statements made by other companies that this will happen.
