Horizon Therapeutics Closes $115 Million Deal For Takeda Campus

DEERFIELD, IL — Horizon Therapeutics closed on the $115 million purchase of the three-building Deerfield office park formerly occupied by Takeda Pharmaceuticals earlier this month, company officials announced.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Horizon officials said employees will move out of Horizon's U.S. headquarters in Lake Forest in the second half of 2020. The company will market its 160,000 square feet of space at 150 S. Saunders Road for sublease when the move if complete.

"We expect to make significant capital expenditures during 2020 in order to prepare the Deerfield campus for occupancy," the filing said.

Horizon currently has more than 500 employees currently based at its Lake Forest office and plans to add more than 100 new workers in the Chicago area by the end of 2020, a company spokesperson told Patch. The company will keep its downtown Chicago offices at 10 S. Wacker Drive, where it has about 60 staffers, even after moving workers into the Deerfield offices, according to Chief Communications Officer Geoff Curtis.

Worldwide, the pharmaceutical company employs about 1,200 people, more than half of whom work in sales and marketing, according to its filing. The company has quadrupled in size since the start of 2014, the year it purchased an Irish firm and moved its global headquarters to Dublin. In 2019 alone, Horizon added more than 200 employees.

"In line with the Company's significant growth over the past three years, the new location will provide the Company the flexibility to accommodate its current U.S. operations as well as its anticipated future growth," Horizon staff said Wednesday in a release accompanying its 2019 financial results.

Built in 2006, the 70-acre complex north of Lake Cook Road and west of Interstate 294 in Deerfield includes 650,000 square feet of office space.

According to the Lake County Treasurer's Office, Tokyo-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals paid more than $2.3 million in property taxes in 2019 for the location. The estimated market value of the property was $102.5 million last year, according to county records.

Before it announced plans to consolidate its North American operations in Massachusetts following its purchase of Shire, the Japanese drugmaker received tens of millions of dollars in tax credits during previous gubernatorial administrations.

Related:
Horizon Plans To Buy Vacant Former Takeda HQ
Takeda Wants To Sell Deerfield Campus Within 6 Months
Takeda To Close Deerfield Headquarters, Move 1,000 Jobs To Boston

Horizon, the property's new owner, is best known for its painkillers and antacid medications, according to Crain's Chicago Business, which first reported the sale.

According to its filing with regulators, Horizon's net sales were up by 8 percent in 2019, with an increase in sales of its its orphan and rheumatology segments making up for a decrease in its inflammation segment.

Gov. JB Pritzker said his administration would continue to invest in the state's biopharmaceutical industry, which he described as an essential engine for creating jobs.

"I am pleased to see the continued growth of Horizon Therapeutics and the life-changing medicines the company is developing," Pritzker said, in a release issued after the move was announced.

Deerfield Mayor Harriet Rosenthal was likewise glad to learn of Horizon's plans to move employees into the former Takeda buildings, according to the release.

"We welcome its deep community spirit to the Village of Deerfield and look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with Horizon and its employees," Rosenthal said.

Village staff are working with Horizon officials to prepare paperwork with the village and both Lake and Cook counties to rename Takeda Parkway, the private road that runs through the complex between Lake Cook and Saunders roads, according to Village Manager Kent Street.