Allergan has broken ground on a $200 million expansion of its Waco, TX manufacturing facility that is expected to add approximately 100 full-time jobs, with the potential for 250 full-time jobs as the site reaches full use.

The expansion, for which ground was broken yesterday, will add 322,000 square feet of manufacturing space to the current facility, Allergan said.

Allergan employs more than 750 workers at its current 400,000-square-foot facility located on a 69-acre campus in Waco's Texas Central Park.

Allergan's Waco facility is the company's flagship manufacturing site for its eye care products, including Restasis®, Lumigan®, Combigan®, Refresh Plus®, Refresh Tears®, and Latisse®. The facility opened in 1989 and also manufactures dermatological products.

The expansion will add a new raw material dispensary, an automated bulk formulation suite, 10 new production lines, as well as warehousing space. Upon completion, the Waco facility will be capable of producing more than 40 different product formulations and will increase its production capacity by more than 50%, according to Allergan.

Construction, commissioning, and validation of the facility expansion and production processes are expected to be completed by 2020.

New positions that will be created through the expansion will include chemists, microbiologists, process engineers, and production and maintenance technicians, the company added.

“This investment will add highly skilled jobs to the Waco and Central Texas economies, elevate our manufacturing capabilities, and increase our ability to provide more complex medicines to more physicians and their patients around the globe,” Allergan President and CEO Brent Saunders said in a statement.

Saunders told the Waco Tribune-Herald that the company considered a handful of Allergan sites for the expansion, including one overseas facility that joined Waco on the company’s short list of locations.

“This is an exciting time for Allergan in that we have more than a dozen potential products in the late stages of research and development, and with their approval by the (FDA), they could be produced at this world-class facility here in Waco,” Saunders told the newspaper.

 

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