Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry Pulls the Plug on 38 North American Sites in 2011

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In a case of bad news being not quite as bad as it could be, the Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry will have shed 38 sites across North America during 2011. Thirty already are closed, and eight more are targeted to end operations by the end of December. What makes this not as bad as it might seem is the fact that this figure is considerably less than the tally of industry plant closures in 2010.

In 2010, the industry was still in the wild throes of extreme reorganization, with every plant a possible target for closure. Now, as 2011 winds to a close, things seem to have settled down a bit. In 2010, 65 pharmaceutical-biotech plants and research centers vanished from the scene. Along with the sites, almost 13,000 jobs were lost. This year, the site closures resulted in a loss of nearly 5,000 jobs.

The sites closed are spread throughout North America, with the Northeast region getting hit the worst. The region will have lost eight locations by year's end. This translates to nearly 1,400 job losses. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) (New York, New York) closed a location in Annandale, New Jersey, in June of this year. The company acquired the site following its purchase of Medarex in 2009. Contract Pharmaceuticals Limited (Mississauga, Ontario) has targeted a manufacturing plant in Buffalo, New York, to close by the end of this year. With it go just more than 100 jobs.

The Mid-Atlantic region takes the dubious honor of second place, with seven site losses. Those losses include Shire plc's (NASDAQ:SHPGY) (Dublin, Ireland) tapping of its Shire USA location in Owings Mills, Maryland. The plant once produced four of the company's top-selling drugs, including attention deficit hyperactivity drug Adderall XR, and employed 260 people at its peak. All production was outsourced to DSM Pharmaceutical Product's (Parsippany, New Jersey) site in Greenville, North Carolina.

In addition to employing thousands, the site also generated some capital investment for both upgrades and regular maintenance activities over the years. Collectively, almost $200 million in reported project spending can be attributed to the 38 locations.

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