The Empire State's biggest biotech Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is plotting a hefty investment to beef up R&D in Tarrytown. And it plans to add a significant number of jobs along the way.
The company, which gained national prominence for its COVID-19 antibody research, laid plans for a six-year, $1.8 billion expansion at its existing Westchester County campus, according to a release from the Governor’s office.
Regeneron will use the funds to boost research, preclinical production and support facilities at the site. With the expansion, the biotech plans to add 1,000 staffers over the next five years.
Set to grow the company’s campus by roughly 900,000 square feet—about the size of 19 football fields—the expansion will cover the design and build-out of up to eight buildings, three parking garages and a central utility plant. The project will take place in two phases over the next six years, bringing on new preclinical manufacturing and process development suites, labs and offices, the Governor’s office said.
If Regeneron hits its hiring target, the company is in line for up to $100 million in tax credits from Empire State Development, the release noted. The project's economic benefit to New York could be somewhere in the range of $2 billion, Cuomo’s office said.
Regeneron is a fixture in the New York business scene. The company debuted in New York City in 1988 with founder Leonard Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D., at the helm. It received $250,000 from Empire State Development the following year, the Governor’s office said. Today, it holds the distinction of being “the largest biotech company” in New York State, the governor's office said.
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This isn't the first rumbling about Regeneron's Westchester County expansion plans this year. In late April, Westfair Online reported the company was blueprinting a $480 million manufacturing and process development facility in the town of Greenburgh, New York, where the village of Tarrytown is located. The company had originally planned to spend $150 million on the plant, but said at the time it was looking to add another $330 million, Westfair said, citing requests heard by the Westchester Industrial Development Agency.
Regeneron's major success story last year centered on its emergency authorization for its COVID-19 antibody cocktail, REGEN-COV. Regeneron's drug snagged the silver right behind Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody drug bamlanivimab, but since then, the tables have largely turned in Regeneron's favor.
Federal Officials in June paused nationwide distribution of Lilly's second antibody treatment, which combines bamlanivimab and etesevimab, citing the cocktail's struggles against virus variants. With that treatment on the outs, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness Response and the FDA urged healthcare providers to pivot to other antibodies like Regeneron’s cocktail and GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology's solo agent sotrovimab, both of which are “likely to retain activity” against certain variants of concern.