Gilead beat out Amazon for 27 acres in Oceanside. Now it is scrapping its development plans. – San Diego Union-Tribune
Gilead beat out Amazon for 27 acres in Oceanside. Now it is scrapping its development plans. – San Diego Union-Tribune
Author: Natallie Rocha
Published on: 2024-01-17 19:50:42
Source: Technology – San Diego Union-Tribune
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Gilead Sciences will not be moving forward with expansion plans to develop 27 acres of land in Oceanside. Instead, the biopharmaceutical company is relocating a portion of its local workforce to the Bay Area.
Gilead makes antiviral drugs used to treat cancer, HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, influenza and COVID-19. Its Oceanside facility — a 70,000-square-foot clinical manufacturing plant off of Ocean Ranch Boulevard — focuses on pharmaceutical development and manufacturing.
In 2022 the company bought an additional 27 acres of undeveloped land on Ocean Ranch Boulevard for a reported $132.5 million, or $4.9 million per acre. It beat out a bid from e-commerce giant Amazon, which wanted to build a 142,000-square-foot distribution center.
Just a few months ago, Gilead submitted preliminary paperwork to the Oceanside Planning Commission stating its intentions to build out a site to support additional manufacturing and development for its existing teams as well as its adjacent subsidiary, Kite Pharma.
But now Gilead said its expansion plans in Oceanside “will not be continuing” in light of its decision to move employees up north.
Pharmaceutical company plans 14-acre expansion in Oceanside corporate centerOver the next few years, Gilead said it will transition the majority of its Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing biologics teams — most of whom are in Oceanside — closer to its home base in Foster City, not far from Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
“We expect to begin the initial phases of this work in 2024 with the intention to have it fully completed by 2027 at the latest,” a Gilead spokesperson said in an email to the Union-Tribune. “For now, we will maintain business operations as usual, so that we don’t miss a beat for patients and ensure an uninterrupted supply of our transformative therapies.”
The company had about 17,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2022. Gilead declined to share how many employees are based in Oceanside and what proportion of its workforce would be impacted.
It’s not clear if the staff relocations will result in any layoffs at Gilead’s North County site. The company did not respond to a clarifying question about what will happen to the existing Oceanside facility or the undeveloped land it purchased.
The company said this plan will not have an impact on Kite Pharma, a subsidiary in Oceanside that develops cancer immunotherapy products, specifically CAR-T cell therapies. Gilead acquired Kite in 2017 for $11.9 billion, as it sought to diversify its pipeline of therapeutic products.
“There is no change to the Kite viral vector manufacturing facility in Oceanside, where it remains business as usual,” the spokesperson said.
Last year in late November, Gilead cut roughly 7 percent of staff at Kite Pharma, as the company refocused its strategy for sustainable growth.
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