Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Plant, United States of America

In June 2006, Bristol-Myers Squibb made a commitment to construct a new large-scale multi-product biopharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Devens, Massachusetts, US. The development, named "Project Hummingbird" by the company, was earmarked for the site – near Harvard – because of several factors, including tax incentives, the availability of an educated workforce and the existing infrastructure.

The site is on an old army base 35 miles north-west of Boston that used to be called Fort Devens. As such, substantial service infrastructure is already in existence. The site was purchased by MassDevelopment for $17m in 1996 and has been developed as a business park ever since.

Construction of the facility began in May 2007 and was operationally complete by 2009. The facility was anticipated to come on-stream in the first half of 2011, after validation for commercial production. The validation, however, has been delayed and the facility is yet to get federal government approval as of December 2011. The validation process started in February 2010, when Bristol-Myers Squibb applied for US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory approval of the facility.

The project required an investment of approximately $750m. Phase one of the project employed around 350 personnel, while subsequent phases required over 550 workers.

The plant will manufacture multiple biotech products, but will initially manufacture Orencia (abatacept), a rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drug (T-cell co-stimulation modulator), which is the company's first approved biotechnology drug. The drug generated revenue of $602m in 2009, accounting for approximately 3.2% of the company's combined sales.

Orencia intravenous (IV) infusion formulation was approved in 2005. In August 2011, the subcutaneous (SC) formulation of Orencia (abatacept) was approved for the treatment of RA in adult patients.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has also developed belatacept (commercial name Nulojix), a kidney transplant drug that will be manufactured at the facility. The drug was approved by the US FDA in June 2011.

In April 2010, the biologics manufacturing facility received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification. The same certification was granted to the laboratory and office building within the facility in December 2009.

Construction

The project required the construction of six 20,000l bioreactors, one purification train and several tower piperacks that are more than 100ft tall.

There are five main buildings, including a central utilities building, large-scale cell culture manufacturing building, quality control / quality assurance and cafeteria / administrative block, warehousing building, chemical storage building and wastewater pre-treatment plant. The plant has been constructed in a modular fashion that makes subsequent expansion to increase capacity easier.

The facility was constructed by Fluor Corporation and Parsons Corporation, which are based in South Carolina and California respectively. The design phase for two of the buildings (lab /office and manufacturing) was overseen by local consultant VHB (Vanasse Hanagen Brustlin), with the aim of facilitating LEED certification for these sections of the new facility.

Wastewater facility

The $600,000 wastewater pre-treatment plant, set in a building with 5,000ft² of floor space, is designed to handle a flow capacity of 530,000gal per day. This includes a redundant system with a 265,000gal capacity for each of the components. The system will handle wastewater from the bioreactors, used buffer solutions and blowdown from the cooling tower and boiler.

The contractors responsible for installation of these systems were: O'Brien & Gere (architect and engineer), Fulcrum Associates (construction manager), Brookside Co, Overhead Door Co, Structural Systems, Ten Sales, Universal Steel Erectors and VP Buildings.

The system uses two sequencing batch reactors of 265,000gal for biological treatment, along with two 200,000gal wastewater equalisation tanks.

Incentives

Bristol-Myers Squibb was awarded $33m in tax credits by the state of Massachusetts, following legislation that changed the state's investment tax credit rules that allowed the company claim a refund for 5% of its investment in the facility.

In addition, the state put through a $34m bond issue for infrastructure relating to the new biopharma plant – the new waste treatment and sewage facilities. The total incentive awarded to the company has been estimated to be approximately $60m.