Pharma Company Plans $200M Manufacturing Expansion in Waco, Texas

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Allergan groundbreaking event in Waco, Texas

Waco, Texas—Allergan plc has broken ground on a $200 million expansion of its Waco, Texas, facility, which will add 322,000 square feet of manufacturing space to its current facility and increase its production capacity by more than 50 percent.

“Today’s groundbreaking marks an important milestone for Allergan, strengthening our commitment to our people, operations and the partnership we have built with Waco and the Central Texas communities for 27 years,” Brent Saunders, Allergan president & CEO, said in a prepared release. “This investment will add highly-skilled jobs to the Waco and Central Texas economies, elevate our manufacturing capabilities and increase our ability to provide more complex medicines to more physicians and their patients around the globe.”

Plans call for the expansion to include a new raw material dispensary, an automated bulk formulation suite and 10 new state-of-the-art production lines as well as warehousing space. Once completed, the Waco facility will be capable of producing more than 40 different product formulations.

According to Saunders, the expansion was achieved thanks to the collaboration between Allergan and the local Waco and Texas state governments and chambers.

“It is through these open collaborations that companies like Allergan can continue to succeed in providing important products, needed innovation and highly skilled jobs for Texas and the U.S. economy,” he said.

Allergan’s Waco facility expansion

According to a study done by Baylor University earlier this year, Allergan’s planned expansion will add $380 million in economic impact during construction and an additional $460 million in ongoing impact to the Central Texas economy.

“This supplement continues to underscore the clear economic and job-creating value Allergan has and will continue to provide to both the Waco and Central Texas economies,” Tom Kelly, Ph.D., Baylor Center for Business & Economic Research in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, said in his analysis. “We hope that Allergan serves as a benchmark for other companies looking for a business friendly community with a highly skilled workforce to consider relocating operations to Waco and the Central Texas area.”