Detroit Regional Chamber > Business Resources > COVID-19 > Pfizer Will Break Ground on Portage Plant Expansion Expected to Create 450 Jobs

Pfizer Will Break Ground on Portage Plant Expansion Expected to Create 450 Jobs

March 31, 2021
MLive
March 29, 2021
Kayla Miller

PORTAGE, MI — Pfizer is breaking ground this week on a new pharmaceutical production facility.

The company will break ground on the new facility at 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 31, according to a press release from Pfizer.

The new facility, “one of the world’s most technically advanced sterile injectable pharmaceutical production facilities — known as Modular Aseptic Processing,” will be a multi-story, 420,000-square-foot production engine in Kalamazoo County, the release said.

The new facility, located at the global manufacturing campus at 7171 Portage Road, is expected to bring 450 new jobs to the region. Construction at the site, which is west of a 98,000-square-foot warehouse near the corner of Romence and Portage roads, will begin this spring and is expected to end in 2023. Pfizer officials expect the facility to be in operation in 2025, a spokesperson for Pfizer said.

In 2018, plans for the $465 million expansion were applauded in Portage by Mayor Patricia Randall and others. Projected revenue to the city over 20 years is estimated to total $26.7 million, Randall said, and the economic benefit to the larger region is projected to total $49.2 million in six years.

Portage City Manager Joe La Margo said Monday that the expansion is great for the region’s economy.

“It’s a positive for the entire community, for the entire region,” La Margo said.

Bringing new jobs to Portage and the surrounding area positively impacts other industries such as restaurants, retail and housing, the city manager said.

“Pfizer is a great community partner,” La Margo said. “We’re happy they are continuing to invest in the city of Portage.”

Pfizer was granted a tax cut for the expansion that city leaders argued was worth it to secure the economic benefit for the region.

The facility will initially manufacture the pain medicine known as Dynastat, which is supplied to several international countries, Pfizer said.

Pfizer, which manufactures a variety of pharmaceutical products, worked with German partner company BioNTech to create a COVID-19 vaccine that was the first to win U.S. regulatory approval in 2020.

Shipments of the vaccines first left Pfizer’s Portage production facility on Dec. 13. Since, millions of doses of the vaccine have been distributed across the country and world.

President Joe Biden visited the vaccine production site in Portage this February, urging Americans to take the vaccine when it was available to them. The country has exceeded the president’s first goal of 100 million vaccines given in the first 100 days of his presidency.

Last week, Biden doubled his goal and promised to have 200 million vaccinations given by the same deadline. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country is already on track to meet the new goal, the New York Times reported.

As of Thursday, March 25, about 1.5 million Michigan residents are completely vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. More than 2.5 million have received at least the first dose.

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