Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN) and Boehringer Ingelheim have signed an agreement under which Boehringer Ingelheim will acquire Amgen's rights in and substantially all assets at Amgen's Fremont California development and manufacturing facility.
The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close in March of this year. The Amgen Fremont facility currently employs approximately 360 employees and is a state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility with pilot plant and process development labs.
"With great enthusiasm, we look forward to welcoming the Amgen Fremont employees into the Boehringer Ingelheim family of companies," said Prof. Dr. Wolfram Carius, Boehringer Ingelheim Board of Managing Directors. "The technological expertise at Fremont and the state-of-the-art facility will enable us to further strengthen our global Contract Manufacturing Business including new biological entity process development and manufacturing efforts. We greatly value our relationship with Amgen and are enthusiastic about joining the San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology community and for the opportunity to better serve our current and future contract manufacturing customers."
Boehringer Ingelheim has been a contract manufacturer for Amgen for more than ten years.
"We are pleased to be able to build upon a successful contract manufacturing relationship with Boehringer Ingelheim," said Fabrizio Bonanni, Dr. Chem., Amgen executive vice president of Operations. "We look forward to continuing to work closely with them to support Amgen's delivery of safe and effective medicines to patients around the world."
Amgen obtained the Fremont facility through its 2006 acquisition of Abgenix. Amgen will continue to have a key presence in the San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology community through its South San Francisco facility, one of the company's key research centers.
About Amgen
Amgen discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers innovative human therapeutics. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen was one of the first companies to realize the new science's promise by bringing safe and effective medicines from lab, to manufacturing plant, to patient. Amgen therapeutics have changed the practice of medicine, helping millions of people around the world in the fight against cancer, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and other serious illnesses. With a deep and broad pipeline of potential new medicines, Amgen remains committed to advancing science to dramatically improve people's lives.
About Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's leading companies for contract development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals. All types of services from mammalian cell line or microbial strain development to final drug production and global market supply can be delivered within a one-stop-shop concept. Boehringer Ingelheim has brought 18 molecules to market and has many years of experience in multiple molecule classes such as monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, interferons, enzymes, fusion molecules, novel scaffold proteins and plasmid DNA.
The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally with 142 affiliates in 50 countries and more than 41,500 employees. For over 125 years, the family-owned company has been committed to researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing novel products of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine. In 2009, Boehringer Ingelheim posted net sales of 12.7 billion euro while spending 21% of net sales in its largest business segment Prescription Medicines on research and development.