Sept. 25--AbbVie Inc. plans to open a research center in Cambridge, Mass., making it the latest pharmaceutical company to set up shop in one of the nation's premier biotech centers.
The company, best known for its anti-inflammatory drug Humira, said it has leased about 43,000 square feet of research space but declined to give details on how many people will work there or what type of research the company will be doing. AbbVie said no jobs will be transferred from its North Chicago headquarters or from a large research and manufacturing facility it operates in Worcester, Mass.
Cambridge, home to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, boasts hundreds of biotech companies and thousands of researchers.
"The location offers us access to top talent and is ideal for establishing collaborations with world-class institutions," AbbVie spokeswoman Elizabeth Hoff said.
Baxalta, the former biosciences division of Baxter International, recently opened a large research and development hub in Cambridge. The company, which specializes in drugs that treat rare diseases like hemophilia, already employs 200 people at the Cambridge site and has said it expects to have up to 500 people there by the end of the year.
"We looked at over 30 locations," John Orloff, Baxalta's chief scientific officer, said in July. "We focused on Cambridge because it's the heart of the biotech community."
Other large drugmakers, including Pfizer, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly already have large research centers or have recently announced plans to set up shop in Cambridge.
Also on Friday, AbbVie reported positive results from mid-stage clinical trials on an experimental medication for rheumatoid arthritis, and said it would move the compound into late-stage trials by the end of the year. The medication, known as ABT-494, has the potential for "best-in-class therapy" and has an overall safety profile, the company reported.
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