London-based pharmaceutical company GSK announced Thursday it has chosen a site in Rockville to establish a global vaccine research and development center.
The company expects the new center to bring about 600 jobs to the area, according to The Baltimore Sun. The jobs will be consolidated from the company’s existing research centers in Philadelphia and Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to GSK.
The Rockville site was acquired by the company in 2012 and is located at 9911 Belward Campus Drive. It’s the former home of Human Genome Sciences, which GSK purchased in 2012 for $3.6 billion.
The new center will serve as one of the company’s three global research and development centers—the other two are in Rixensart, Belgium, and Siena, Italy. At the center the company plans to develop vaccines “across a range of pressing public health threats,” according to a company statement.
“We are very pleased that GSK has chosen to expand its presence in Rockville for vaccine research and development,” Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett said in a statement. “The decision reinforces the reality that Montgomery County is a good place to do business. The resources available to life sciences companies are second to none, including federal agencies and labs and a well-educated workforce.”
The vaccine center will be located about 11 miles from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, the largest biomedical research institution in the world.
“I am proud that a world-class pharmaceutical company like GSK has chosen to grow its U.S. operations in Maryland,” Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement. “With key federal labs like the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health in our backyard, a highly-educated workforce and a critical mass of life sciences companies, Maryland offers GSK with an excellent environment in which to grow and thrive.”
The company expects to begin developing vaccines at the center as early as September.
