On a quiet 14-hectare campus here, inside a series of large stainless steel vats that look more like they belong in a brewery than a lab, Abbott Laboratories is making what the North Chicago drug maker hopes will be the next huge-selling rheumatoid arthritis drug.
The drug, Humira, approved last week by regulators, was discovered, developed and manufactured at Abbott's Bioresearch Center here on a hilltop overlooking the UMass Medical Center and parts of downtown, and it has the potential to become the biggest-selling drug ever produced by the state's biotechnology industry.
If it reaches anywhere near that potential, it will also be a major boon for Worcester. The city has long pinned its hopes on biotechnology as a way to offset its declining industrial base, but its nearly 20-year effort has yielded only modest results. Although the industry is growing, it remains small at 36 companies, 2,000 employees and US$200 million in revenues.
But Humira holds the promise of fueling the city's economic growth, and overhauling its image as a fading industrial town and a second-fiddle biotech player to the more thriving Cambridge hub. Abbott has already invested heavily in its Worcester operations, growing from about 330 people two years ago to more than 600 by year's end. It broke ground last month on a 5800m2 expansion that will cost US$50 million and increase the center's manufacturing capacity by 50 percent when the project is completed in late 2004.
`Liquid gold'
"This drug has been called liquid gold," said Kevin O'Sullivan, vice president of development at Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, a Worcester economic development organization. "It could provide a huge economic and psychological lift for the region, especially now when the economic climate is so uncertain. We have to work very, very hard here. We're not Boston, and we're not Kendall Square. We need successes like Abbott to breed future success."
Humira's introduction is also arguably the most important commercial launch in Abbott's 115-year history. It has the potential to be the company's most lucrative drug, generating more than a billion dollars in annual sales within the next three to four years and perhaps, one day, even reaching US$2 billion a year. If the drug delivers on its promise, it could transform what has long been considered a sleepy Midwestern firm into a major player in the pharmaceutical industry, putting to rest doubts raised among investors in recent years by a series of regulatory troubles and setbacks.
"Abbott has not been known in recent years as a pharmaceutical powerhouse," said Bruce Cranna, an analyst with Leerink Swann & Co in Boston. "Its drug business has been sluggish. It has an aging portfolio. But in Humira, you have a drug that has the potential to single-handedly rejuvenate its business."
But the competition for the US$3 billion rheumatoid arthritis market in the US promises to be fierce. The chief rivals, Enbrel and Remicade, are both huge-selling drugs considered highly effective in treating the debilitating autoimmune disease, easing the pain, swelling and stiffness in patients' joints that often strikes in their 20s or 30s and gradually robs them of their ability to walk, climb stairs and perform other rudimentary tasks.
US$10bn competitor
Amgen, the world's largest biotech company, paid US$10 billion last year to buy Seattle's Immunex to add the huge-selling Enbrel to its product portfolio. It markets the drug in partnership with Wyeth, another major drug maker. The other market leader, Remicade, is marketed by New Jersey drug giant Johnson & Johnson. With billions at stake, analysts said, none of the companies are going to give up market share without a fight.
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