California biotech firm to build facility in Brooklyn Park
Terry Fiedler
Star Tribune
Published Sep 28 2001
A California-based biotechnology company, Protein Design
Labs Inc., plans to build a $150 million production facility in
Brooklyn Park.
Construction will begin next year on a 29-acre site in Brooklyn
Park south of Hwy. 610 between Broadway Av. and Winnetka
Av. N., company spokesman Jim Goff said Thursday.
The company expects to employ more than 200 people at the
site initially, Goff said. The investment in the site would be
spread over several years, he added.
Publicly traded Protein Design Labs currently employs about
100 people in a 45,000-square-foot production facility in
Plymouth.
Goff said the state of Minnesota has provided some subsidies for
the project, but he was unsure of the extent. Officials with the
state Department of Trade and Economic Development could
not be reached late Thursday afternoon for comment.
Based in Fremont, Calif., Protein Design develops humanized
monoclonal antibodies for the prevention and treatment of
disease. Its first humanized antibody product, Zenapax, is used
for the prevention of kidney transplant rejection and is
marketed by Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.
The company extracts antibodies for specific conditions from
mice. Those antibodies are then altered, or "humanized," so
they won't be rejected by the human body.
Goff said the company is expanding production capacity in
anticipation of the production in the next few years of drugs
that treat auto-immune and inflammatory conditions, as well
as asthma and cancer.
The company earned $4.6 million on revenue of $75 million for
the 12 months ended June 30.
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