AstraZeneca snaps up Amgen’s Colorado plant for $64.5M

Pharma giant AstraZeneca is shelling out $64.5 million for Amgen’s facility in Longmont, CO, further expanding its footprint on the outskirts of Denver.

The company picked up Amgen’s Boulder, CO, facility for $14.6 million a year ago and plans to begin using the Longmont plant to warehouse materials to support manufacturing operations there, Abigail Bozarth, a company spokeswoman, told the Boulder Daily Camera.

“No additional decisions have been taken by AstraZeneca for product placement or investment at this time,” Bozarth told the newspaper. “However, the Longmont site has the capability and infrastructure needed to support our future product portfolio.”

The Longmont facility had been used to produce the anemia drug Epogen, which Amgen stopped producing at the plant in 2014. The site has been for sale since June 2015.

The Daily Camera cited reports that Amgen may restart production of Epogen while waiting for its Thousand Oaks, CA, manufacturing facility to ramp up its operations.

A leaseback provision in the sale to AstraZeneca allows Amgen to continue operating some areas of the Longmont plant for a specified period of time, Eric Dienstbach, a real estate agent who represented Amgen in the sale, told the Daily Camera.

Terms of the sale weren’t disclosed by either AstraZeneca or Amgen.

- read more from the Daily Camera

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