AstraZeneca has commenced construction of its $4.5bn active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facility in Virginia.
The site, which is located near Charlottesville, will produce APIs for medicines across its cardiovascular, obesity, oncology and metabolic disease portfolio.
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This includes drugs from the company’s mid-to-late-stage pipeline – namely its Eccogene-partnered glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) pill, AZD5004/ ECC-5004, as well as hypertension med baxdrostat and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) degrader, laroprovstat.
On top of the $4bn originally pledged for the site’s construction, AstraZeneca announced it would pour an extra $500m into the Virginia facility on 9 October, facilitating the construction of extra production capacity for its cancer portfolio.
The site will now also be used to manufacture antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), which the big pharma considers to be a core part of its oncology R&D strategy due to the drug class’s potential to become the “backbone of cancer care”.
Though AstraZeneca did not specify which ADCs it will produce at the Virginia site, the company has received the regulatory nod for two of its products in this drug class. This includes blockbuster seller Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan), which GlobalData analysts forecast will rake in $14.3bn for the pharma in 2031.
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By GlobalDataGlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.
The other asset in the company’s growing ADC portfolio is Datroway (datopotamab deruxtecan), which was recently granted accelerated approval in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
This drug may also take AstraZeneca closer to its goal of putting ADCs in the oncology limelight, as the Phase III TROPION-Breast02 trial found that Datroway outperformed chemotherapy in first-line breast cancer for immunotherapy-ineligible patients.
Virginia’s growing pharma presence
AstraZeneca’s Virginia facility will house 600 full-time roles, while 3,000 jobs will be created during the build. If all goes to plan, the company anticipates the site will open within the next four-to-five years.
According to the UK-Swedish pharma giant, this facility will be the “cornerstone” of its $50bn US investment, which the company made amid 100% tariff threats on branded drug imports from the Trump administration.
AstraZeneca’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, also noted that this investment is the “largest in the company’s history,” and will work to “strengthen America’s national security and health sovereignty”.
The pharma’s choice to place operations in Virginia closely follows Eli Lilly’s $5bn manufacturing investment into the area, which will see the company build a biconjugate and monoclonal antibody (mAb) production facility in Goochland County.
AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly will also join rival Merck in the region, which expanded capacity at its Elkton site in 2022 to bolster supplies of its human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil.
