GSK to expand global vaccines footprint with new R&D center in the USA

UK pharma major GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) is further strengthening and expanding its vaccines presence in the USA by establishing a new global center for vaccines research and development in Rockville, Maryland.

The site is the former base of Human Genome Sciences, which GlaxoSmithKline acquired for $3 billion in 2012. The facility will become one of three global vaccines R&D centers for GSK, complementing the company’s existing global R&D operations in Rixensart (Belgium) and in Siena (Italy), a site which GSK recently acquired from Novartis.

The new US vaccines R&D center will expand GSK’s efforts to discover and develop novel vaccines across a range of pressing public health threats, including those relevant to the USA. It will consolidate vaccines R&D activities currently conducted at other GSK sites including in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, into one centralized location. Key late stage development programs, as well as vaccine discovery and new platform technology development will be led from Rockville. This is the latest step in a major overhaul of the firm's US operations. GSK has already announced plans to cut more than 1,000 jobs - mostly in R&D - in North Carolina and Philadelphia.