By Joshua Burd
For all of the success in backfilling New Jersey’s legacy lab space, doing the same for vacant pharmaceutical manufacturing buildings has been decidedly more difficult.
And it’s not for a lack of interest. John Buckley, a broker with JLL, said much of the demand has come from generic drug makers that are based overseas but have been pushed to the U.S. by regulators.
John Buckley
Those companies often start their search in New Jersey in an effort to capitalize on the state’s existing talent, he said, but are hard-pressed to find what they need.
“The thought was that these companies can plant a flag here in the U.S. and have more of a sightline on the quality of the product,” said Buckley, a JLL executive vice president. “The challenge that those companies are facing is that there’s not a significant supply of those types of facilities.”
Buckley pointed to a recent transaction by MSN Pharmaceuticals, which entered the market last year seeking existing infrastructure for an oral manufacturing facility. Ultimately, the India-based firm opted to buy a 200,000-square-foot warehouse in Piscataway and build out the infrastructure from scratch.
