Thursday, October 2, 2008

Perley to manage Devens’ Bristol-Myers Squibb manufacturing plant

By Mass High Tech Staff

Global pharmaceuticals firm Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. has named Christopher Perley as vice president and general manager of the Devens biologics manufacturing facility, expected to be operational in 2011. Perley will manage the construction and operations of the site.

Before joining Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), which has its headquarters in New York, Perley served as vice president, network strategy, at Wyeth Biotech. Prior to Wyeth, he worked in biotechnology process development and manufacturing at Andover-based Genetics Institute and at Hoffman-La Roche in New Jersey.

Perley earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from MIT, a Master of Science degree in biochemical engineering from MIT and a Master of Business Administration degree from Boston University’s executive program.

As of April, Bristol-Myers planned to employ 214 people in the Devens site by the end of the year.

Last year, the company began construction on the first phase of the Devens plant. With a projected cost of $750 million and finish date in 2009, the first phase is expected to include two production facilities, a warehouse and an office building. Plans are to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the operation in 2010.

The facilities under construction have a modular design to enable later expansion that could bring the total investment in the operation to $1.1 billion and the number of workers there to 550, according to the company. Bristol-Myers, which employs 42,000 workers worldwide, reported a 2007 profit of $2.2 billion on revenue of $19.3 billion.

Plans are to use the plant to produce Orencia, a protein drug approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis, in addition to producing other biological medicines.