One of Chris Boerner’s first tours as the new CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb was of a 256,000 square-foot research facility in the Bay Area concentrated on the tumor microenvironment.
But months later, that Redwood City site is closing as part of a much-wider $1.5 billion-dollar restructuring effort. BMS is consolidating the work at a nearby site in Brisbane less than 20 miles away, according to a spokesperson Friday.
“We remain committed to the San Francisco Bay Area as an important innovation hub for Bristol Myers Squibb and we will continue to drive transformational science under a unified R&D presence in Brisbane to deliver on our mission for patients,” the spokesperson said.
The campus housed the Cancer Immunology & Cell Therapy Thematic Research Center (CICT TRC), where scientists explored the tumor microenvironment and disseminated findings to translational scientists elsewhere in the company. Redwood City is one of three sites across California that employ more than 1,000 employees combined.
The confirmed closure follows larger news that BMS is shaving $1.5 billion in costs through 2025, resulting in roughly 2,200 layoffs this year. The company is ending development on roughly a dozen assets and reworking management structures. Executives teased on Thursday’s first-quarter earnings call that the savings would include “optimizing operations across the organization.”
In an interview with STAT News, Boerner described cell therapy as “just one of those areas that we’ve been looking at to make important prioritization decisions” while still committing to the modality as a core franchise. Sources familiar with the decisions told Fierce Biotech that despite the executive’s enthusiasm for cancer cell therapy Breyanzi, staffers working on the drug were included in Seattle-area layoffs.
“The changes in our Cell Therapy Organization will streamline and focus efforts on the most promising areas, enabling us to maximize our inline assets, while building the foundation necessary to deliver on our best-in-class pipeline,” a spokesperson said. They added that BMS remains committed to the Seattle area as a core research hub.
It’s at least the second Big Pharma to shrink resources in California, after Johnson & Johnson elected to close its own R&D hub in Brisbane less than 18 months after opening. That facility focused on infectious diseases, RNA and gene editing.