Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., the state”™s largest biotechnology company, has become a commercial landowner in Westchester County with its recent $73 million purchase of an undeveloped 100-acre parcel at The Landmark at Eastview, the life sciences campus where Regeneron has its headquarters.
Regeneron in a statement on Tuesday said the company acquired the property “to offer flexibility for future growth.” Greenburgh town officials last month rezoned the property as a planned economic development district.
- One of two Regeneron Pharmaceuticals buildings under construction at The Landmark at Eastview in Mount Pleasant.
The fast-growing biotech company currently is embarked on a $100 million expansion project on the Mount Pleasant side of the Landmark campus, which straddles Old Saw Mill River Road, adding 300,000 square feet of office and laboratory space in two new buildings due to open later this year. A Regeneron spokeswoman said the company plans to hire more than 500 additional employees by the end of 2016.
Regeneron”™s landlord at The Landmark, BioMed Realty Trust Inc., paid $98.5 million in 2007 to acquire the developed area of the former Union Carbide campus from LCOR Inc., a Pennsylvania-based real estate development company, and LCOR”™s joint-venture partners in Manhattan, Argent Ventures LLC and the former Lehman Brothers Inc. The seller in the recent deal with Regeneron, Eastview Holdings LLC, now is controlled by Argent Ventures, which also owns Grand Central Terminal.
San Diego-based BioMed Realty was not involved in the $73 million sale that closed in late April.
LCOR in 2011 proposed to Greenburgh officials to build nearly half a million square feet of hotel and big-box retail space on the vacant 100-acre site and sought a new zoning classification for the property. The planned economic development district approved last month by the Greenburgh town board allows a broad range of uses, including research and development, office buildings, retail, restaurants, banks, recreation facilities, higher education facilities, hotels and conference centers.
At Regeneron, the remarkable pace of job creation and revenue growth has been driven by U.S. and foreign sales of Eylea, used in the treatment of eye diseases, the company’s development and commercialization collaborations with Bayer HealthCare and Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, and a growing pipeline of antibody drugs. Regeneron this month reported first-quarter total revenues of $870 million, a 39 percent increase from a year ago, and $336 million in net income, up 28 percent from the first quarter of 2014.
Dr. Leonard S. Schleiffer, president and CEO of Regeneron, in the quarterly report said this year marks “an inflection point in our business,” with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration due in July to complete its accelerated review of Praluent, an antibody drug used to lower “bad” cholesterol in patients, which could potentially be marketed this year. Schleifer also noted the continued advancement of the company”™s pipeline of drugs in various stages of development, “which we expect to include five late-stage programs across a range of serious diseases by the end of the year.”
Regeneron employs more than 1,800 workers in Westchester and more than 3,300 employees globally.
