Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is investing more than $200 million to build a new clinical manufacturing plant in Andover, Massachusetts. The new facility, which will join the company’s commercial manufacturing campus in Andover, will be dedicated to clinical manufacturing of biologics and vaccines.

The company said it expects the 5-story building of the new clinical manufacturing facility to be ready for operations in early 2019. Pfizer will hire about 75 new permanent employees to work at the new facility and an additional 200 people are expected to get temporary employment during the construction phase of the 175,000-square-feet state-of-the-art plant.

Pfizer already has nearly 2,000 employees in Massachusetts. In addition to the biologics clinical production facility that will sit in Andover, the company has an R&D center in Cambridge.

Andover campus

In Andover, Pfizer already has 7 buildings, which include laboratories and commercial and clinical manufacturing sites. The company has about 1,200 employees working at its Andover campus.

According to Pfizer, the new clinical manufacturing facility it is adding in Andover will have 5 manufacturing suites. The company said the idea is to ensure that the new facility can cope with its complex and usually diverse biologics and vaccine research efforts. As such, the company boasts that the coming 5-story Andover facility is designed to meet the demands of next generation clinical production strategies.

Pfizer said it will use both bioreactors as well as disposable process technologies at the new Andover facility.

Low-cost clinical production

The new Andover plant appears to be also designed to spread Pfizer’s operational efficiency gospel. The company revealed that the facility will provide the lowest cost for highly flexible clinical manufacturing.

Pfizer’s officials at the groundbreaking for the new facility hinted that the company might expand more in the area in the future.

Contribution to the economy

According to Massachusetts’s Lieutenant Governor, Karyn Polito, the move by Pfizer demonstrates the faith that big pharmaceutical companies have in the state. He added that the new facility will further boost the state’s economy and improve the quality of life for its residents.