Am­gen has fa­mous­ly been called a law firm with a biotech com­pa­ny at­tached to it. And now that biotech at­tach­ment will have sig­nif­i­cant­ly more room to de­vel­op and grow.

Right next to Genen­tech’s 1 DNA Way in south San Fran­cis­co, Am­gen on Thurs­day opened the doors to a new 245,000-square-foot build­ing that will be filled with about 650 staff work­ing to dis­cov­er drugs to treat can­cer, in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases and car­diometa­bol­ic dis­or­ders.

Con­struc­tion on the nine-sto­ry fa­cil­i­ty, which is right on the ma­ri­na at Oys­ter Point, be­gan in 2019 and was ini­tial­ly ex­pect­ed to open in ear­ly 2022. Now the space will of­fer a num­ber of perks to at­tract top tal­ent, like dif­fer­ent din­ing op­tions, a health club and out­door recre­ation ar­eas.

Robert Brad­way

“This new state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ty fur­ther demon­strates our com­mit­ment to dis­cov­er­ing and de­vel­op­ing treat­ments for some of the world’s most se­ri­ous and wide­spread dis­eases,” Am­gen chair­man and CEO Robert Brad­way said in a state­ment.

Since an­nounc­ing its de­ci­sion to pull out of neu­ro­science R&D in 2019, Am­gen has con­sol­i­dat­ed its US-based re­search to South San Fran­cis­co and Thou­sand Oaks, where it’s head­quar­tered. But in ad­di­tion to the 149 jobs they axed in Cam­bridge — where the neu­ro­science team was large­ly based — Am­gen al­so laid off 172 staffers na­tion­wide in 2019 as part of an ef­fort to cut op­er­a­tions, R&D and field-based com­mer­cial po­si­tions.

More re­cent­ly in the Bay Area, Am­gen is pay­ing $4 bil­lion for Chemo­Cen­tryx, a San Car­los-based biotech fo­cused on oral­ly ad­min­is­tered ther­a­peu­tics to treat au­toim­mune dis­eases, in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­or­ders and can­cer. That deal is ex­pect­ed to close this quar­ter.

In ad­di­tion to Genen­tech, Ab­b­Vie al­so has built new space at Oys­ter Point in re­cent years, near a few of its part­ners like Cal­i­co, Cy­tomX and Alec­tor.

In ad­di­tion to the open­ing of its site, Am­gen this week al­so scored a new $290 mil­lion sup­ply deal with the US gov­ern­ment for its drug for use in ra­di­o­log­i­cal and nu­clear emer­gen­cies.

DC District Court Judge Christopher Cooper today granted Vanda Pharma’s request to require the FDA to disclose more info on the complete response letter for its sleep disorder drug Hetlioz.

The melatonin receptor agonist is approved by the FDA to treat non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder, a circadian rhythm disorder. But in 2018 Vanda filed a supplemental application to market Hetlioz as a treatment for jet lag, which the FDA rejected in August 2019, with few details on what Vanda needed to correct course, according to the company.

The US pharma giant Eli Lilly will be increasing its financial commitment to a manufacturing site in Ireland.

According to a release from Ireland’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA) on Monday, Lilly will be investing another $500 million in its manufacturing facility in Limerick, Ireland — bringing the total investment into the facility to approximately $1 billion.

In January of last year, Lilly announced it was placing a $446 million investment into the site to expand active pharmaceutical ingredient and monoclonal antibody production.