OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. is consolidating its far-flung biotech operations and relocating to Ardsley Park, the former home of Purdue Pharma and Ciba-Geigy.
The company said it expects to save some $15 million in yearly operating expenses after completing the consolidation by the fourth quarter of next year.
The hilly, 43-acre campus along Saw Mill River Road in the town of Greenburgh contains four buildings with 400,000 square feet of office and laboratory space. OSI paid $27 million for the site, which is assessed at $32 million.
A longtime fixture on Long Island, CEO Colin Goddard called OSI”™s consolidation a strategic move both financially and site-wise.
“After an extensive and highly competitive process involving the exploration of options in different states, we have identified a campus that will represent a first-rate facility for our company and provide for all foreseeable expansion needs over the next several years. We are delighted that OSI will remain in New York state and we look forward to being an integral part of a growing cluster of quality biotech companies in Westchester County.”
OSI joins biotech companies Regeneron, Emisphere Technologies, BioReference labs, Siemens, Ciba and Quest Diagnostics in Greenburgh.
The company is looking to begin moving 350 employees from Melville and Farmingdale, as well as those in Cedar Knolls, N.J., and Boulder, Colo., later this year.
OSI will continue to operate its diabetes and obesity unit in Oxford, England.
Construction and improvements at the Ardsley campus are expected to begin in August.
Incentives from the county and state include a PILOT agreement, a payment in lieu of taxes, for a proposed term of 15 years.
Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said incentives from Westchester County include mortgage recording tax and sales tax on construction abatements.
“I feel like we hit the jackpot,” Feiner said. “We are really becoming the go-to destination for biotech companies.”
Feiner said the town expects $1 million in building permit fees. He said OSI will do renovations upward of $60 million and will add a building on campus within the next five years.
“We”™ve been working with OSI for quite a while and are delighted that our joint efforts with ESD have paid off,” County Executive Andrew Spano said.
OSI, which began at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1983, is best known for developing the lung cancer drug, Tarceva. Total worldwide net sales of the drug for 2008 were approximately $1.12 billion.
OSI”™s total revenues for 2008 were $379 million, up 11 percent over the previous year. Its net income was $467 million. Last week shares were trading at $27.86, down from a high of $52.39 on Aug. 14, 2008.
The upcoming move by OSI is the second in four years. In April 2005, the company moved its headquarters to a 60,000-square-foot building in Melville for which it paid $11.5 million.
OSI”™s move from Long Island was characterized by a Newsday editorial as a “dagger in our heart.”
The editorial said in part: “The deciding factor was dollars: OSI is getting a 43-acre site in Ardsley, with lots of office and lab space, for just $27 million ”“ a puny cost compared to both the time and expense of building on Long Island. ”¦A natural site would have been Farmingdale, but expansion there, on SUNY property, required state legislation ”“ yet another nasty consequence of SUNY”™s lack of operational flexibility.”
