Amgen expands hiring in Massachusetts as other facilities close more quickly

By Zachary Brennan

- Last updated on GMT

Amgen expands hiring in Massachusetts as other facilities close more quickly
Biotech giant Amgen has begun hiring about 100 more research scientists and production engineers as part of an expansion at its office in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the same time as laying off more than 2,000 employees at other sites.

The Thousand Oaks, California- based company said in a regulatory filing Monday that its move was part of a broader effort to increase its footprint in two biotechnology hubs: Cambridge and South San Francisco, Calif.

For Q1, the company announced that it spent $172m in total expansions, which were associated primarily with manufacturing capacity expansions in various locations, as well as other site developments.

Layoffs

The hiring and capacity expansions come as the company also announced plans to expedite the closure of its facilities in Boulder and Longmont, Colorado, as well as Bothell and Seattle, Washington and the consolidation of facilities in Thousand Oaks, California.

More than 2,000 employees’ jobs​ are in the process of being cut at facilities around the globe, including more than 1,000 at these US sites, as the company looks to save about $700m per year.

Amgen spokeswoman Kristen Davis told us, “It’s also important to note that some staff at these sites transferred to other Amgen locations​,” though she could not specify the numbers of staff that had been relocated.

The decision to accelerate the closure of these manufacturing and research and development (R&D) facilities was principally based on optimizing the utilization​” of the company’s other sites in the US, Amgen said in a recent SEC filing.

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