With its Al­ler­gan buy­out now long in the books, Ab­b­Vie has been tak­ing a hard look at its sud­den­ly ex­pan­sive glob­al ops to find space for a deal. Now, work­ing with a Chi­nese cell and gene ther­a­py play­er hun­gry for more el­bow room abroad, Ab­b­Vie has tak­en one UK fa­cil­i­ty off its books.

Ab­b­Vie has of­floaded its Liv­er­pool man­u­fac­tur­ing site as part of a $118.7 mil­lion sale to Chi­nese cell and gene ther­a­py play­er Phar­maron, which is pitch­ing the pur­chase as the next step in its glob­al ex­pan­sion plans, the com­pa­nies said last week.

The Ab­b­Vie site — pre­vi­ous­ly op­er­at­ed by Al­ler­gan pri­or to the two drug­mak­ers’ $63 bil­lion merg­er — has been in op­er­a­tion since 2007 and em­ploys rough­ly 150 work­ers, Phar­maron said. The deal is ex­pect­ed to close in Q2.

Giv­en the sheer size of Ab­b­Vie and Al­ler­gan’s merg­er, a de­gree of syn­er­gy — and there­fore as­set sales — are ex­pect­ed. But the sale to Phar­maron could put those 150 jobs at risk. The com­pa­ny didn’t spec­i­fy in its re­lease whether it in­tend­ed to keep those staff on board.

For Phar­maron, the ac­qui­si­tion will help flesh out its end-to-end man­u­fac­tur­ing ser­vices in cell and gene ther­a­pies, one of the hottest mar­kets in all of bio­phar­ma. In No­vem­ber, the CD­MO pur­chased US non-clin­i­cal CRO out­fit Ab­sorp­tion Sys­tems to bol­ster its R&D ca­pa­bil­i­ties. Ab­sorp­tion spe­cial­ized in DMPK/ADME and bio­analy­sis for both small and large mol­e­cules, par­tic­u­lar­ly in trans­porters, hu­man PK pre­dic­tion and trans­la­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­tics, Phar­maron said.

The cell and gene ther­a­py space has been a hotbed of in­vest­ment in re­cent years, and that trend has con­tin­ued in­to 2021.

Ear­li­er this week, Bio­gen an­nounced its plans to add a $200 mil­lion fa­cil­i­ty to its sprawl­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing cam­pus­es in Re­search Tri­an­gle Park. Blue­print­ed for a 2023 start date, Bio­gen is build­ing a 175,000-square-foot fa­cil­i­ty that glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing chief Nicole Mur­phy says will fit the bill on 3 key as­pects: dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed, sus­tain­able and ad­vanced.

The week pri­or, Swiss CD­MO Celonic un­veiled plans to build a 91,500-square-foot man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­ter fo­cused on cell and gene ther­a­pies, next-gen vac­cines and oth­er “in­no­v­a­tive” drugs as part of a two-part ex­pan­sion at No­var­tis’ Rhine Val­ley hub. The ex­pan­sion will add rough­ly 250 work­ers at the site, Celonic said, as well as up to 20 man­u­fac­tur­ing clean rooms, and lab and of­fice space. The fa­cil­i­ty is set to open in Q2 2022, Celonic said.

Since our start in 2016, Endpoints has grown fast while executing our mission to cover biopharma’s most critical developments for industry pros worldwide. As readership has grown, our advertising business has too. Endpoints advertising partners support the mission and engage their desired audiences through announcements on our email and web platforms, brand recognition in our event coverage and sponsorships of Endpoints daily and weekly reports.

After years as the top spending pharma TV advertiser, AbbVie’s Humira brand finally downshifted earlier this year, ceding much of its marketing budget to up-and-coming sibling meds Skyrizi and Rinvoq. However, now Humira is back on TV with ads for another condition — Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).

The chronic and painful skin condition results in lumps and abscesses caused by inflammation or infection of sweat glands, most often in the armpits or groin. Humira was first approved to treat HS in 2015 and remains the only FDA-approved drug for the condition. Two TV ads both note more than 30,000 people with HS have been prescribed Humira.