Kyowa Kirin Inc. has opened its new office at 510 Carnegie Center in West Windsor —Courtesy: Kyowa Kirin
By Joshua Burd
A global pharmaceutical maker has unveiled its new North American headquarters outside Princeton, where it leases nearly 80,000 square feet that will house some 300 employees.
Kyowa Kirin Inc., an affiliate of Japan-based Kyowa Kirin Co. Ltd., said the space at 510 Carnegie Center allows it to combine teams that had been split across two New Jersey locations. Those teams support all phases of the product life cycle including development, commercial and corporate functions, the firm said, while noting that the West Windsor office has more than twice the amount of conferencing and meeting space than its prior facilities in the state.
The drug maker occupies the suite, which has mostly unassigned and communal workstations, under a 78,460-square-foot lease signed early last year. HLW designed the space on Kyowa Kirin’s behalf, while Rock Brook served as the project’s MEP engineer and Structure Tone and The Cadence Group as its construction managers.
“Bringing our teams into one shared location will enable us to work more collaboratively across the lifecycle as we focus on increasing our impact and work for patients and their families,” said Steve Schaefer, Kyowa Kirin’s president for North America. “We designed the space with employee input, with the goal of creating a space that would suit the needs of a dynamically changing and growing workforce.”
The firm, which has a 70-year history, also has a research facility in La Jolla, California, according to a news release. It has been steadily growing its market presence in North America since 2018, when it received approval from the U.S. Federal Drug Administration for the first of three medicines it now markets in the country, while North America accounted for more than a quarter of its global revenues in 2022, up from 13 percent in 2019.
Kyowa Kirin has nearly doubled its number of North American employees to more than 600 during that time, the news release said. It has since changed offices within the Princeton submarket, opening a space that allows it to grow and integrate more team members without adding incremental workspaces.
The company has also adopted a hybrid work schedule to support its employees’ personal needs and changing lifestyles, the company said.
“From the start to finish, the design has been rooted in the Japanese idea of Wa, which is all about teams that work in sync or harmony,” said Britt Byers, senior vice president of human resources in North America. “We want an environment that reflects those ideals and maximizes opportunities for each person to get involved and contribute to our success. Throughout this two-year project, we regularly engaged employees to get input on design options and workplace policies. We looked at this move as an opportunity to rethink all aspects of our workplace and spur positive changes.”
Other professionals involved in the project include:
- Structural engineer: AFA
- IT and security consultant: TMT
- A/V consultant: Cenero
- Furniture dealer: FCI
- Environmental graphics: Brandx
