Bristol-Myers Squibb Confirms Closure of Wallingford Site, Not Staying in Connecticut

WALLINGFORD, CT — Bristol-Myers Squibb Company this week confirmed its plans to close its Wallingford site by the end of 2018 and also announced that it will no longer build another facility in Connecticut.

Last summer, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that it would close its facility at 5 Research Drive in Wallingford with up to 500 employees relocating to a new location in the state. Overall, the company planned to relocate up to 800 employees (with some going out-of-state) and eliminate 100 jobs.

However, none of the jobs will stay in Connecticut after Bristol-Myers Squibb announced Tuesday that it will “no longer build a Connecticut Development site.”

The company also announced plans to initiate a phased multi-year closure of its Hopewell, New Jersey site by mid-2020 and it will not renew its lease at the Lake Union Steam Plant site in Seattle, Washington in 2019.

The company expects many of the roles from Wallingford, Hopewell and Seattle will transition to other U.S. locations.

Bristol-Myers Squibb will make investments in the construction of a new R&D building at the company’s Lawrenceville, New Jersey campus that will co-locate lab-based Discovery and Translational Medicine activities, construction at its New Brunswick, New Jersey facility to support biologics development, and construction to continue expansion of its biologics campus in Devens, Massachusetts.

“These important changes to our U.S. geographic footprint will ensure we have the structural, operational and financial flexibility to deliver as effectively as possible on our mission for patients,” Bristol-Myers Squibb Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Caforio, M.D, said in a press release. “(Tuesday’s) announcement underscores our commitment to make the right investments to continue to deliver on the promise of our pipeline and to bring transformational medicines to patients, today and in the future.”

In October, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced an “evolution of its operating model to drive the company’s continued success in the near and long term through a more focused investment in commercial opportunities against key brands and markets, a competitive and more agile R&D organization that can accelerate the pipeline, streamlined operations and realigned manufacturing capabilities that broaden biologics capabilities to reflect its current and future portfolio.”

The Wallingford facility is a multi-wing single building with 1 million square feet dedicated to drug discovery and drug development activities within the Research and Development.

The following departments are represented in Wallingford, according to the company’s website: Applied Biotechnology, Applied Genomics, Chemistry, Clinical Research, Metabolism & Pharmacokinetics, Neuroscience and Virology.

Image via Bristol-Myers Squibb website

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