{"id":5412,"date":"2026-07-25T16:06:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5412"},"modified":"2026-07-25T16:06:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:06:58","slug":"biopharmaceutical-firm-plans-to-close-one-of-its-bay-area-plants-lay-off-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5412","title":{"rendered":"Biopharmaceutical firm plans to close one of its Bay Area plants, lay off 25"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>A biopharmaceutical company operating in Vacaville for 24 years plans to close one of its two research and development facilities there. This comes after a few years after it bought local land for expansion.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5410\">Opinion: America is at war. Pete Hegseth is focused on beards and hormones.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>DesigneRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., part of the U.S. arm of the Cayman Islands-based, Taiwan-anchored Polaris Group, notified state and local officials July 20 that it wants to end manufacturing at 4941 Allison Parkway, Suite B, affecting 25 workers. Those layoffs there are set to start Sept. 21 and end by mid-October, according to the filing. Roughly five employees will remain there to decommission the facility and eventually turn it over the the building owner, the document said.<\/p>\n<p>This 45,000-square-foot facility is leased from the Yeh family, who also own Synder Filtration in the same building, according to Eric Dakin of Dakin &amp; Dakin Commercial Real Estate Services. He also represented Polaris\/DesigneRx in the 2022 land purchase and the 2023 purchase of an 11,000-square-foot building at 4980 Allison.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey bought it for growth and expansion to accommodate more engineers and scientists and R&amp;D,\u201d Dakin said of 4980 Allison. The sale price was $2.3 million, according to public records.<\/p>\n<p>The land deal one of several that came out of A.G. Spanos\u2019 sale of about 120 acres in the business park in 2021. Newcomer drug developer Agenus bought the land for about $3 a square foot then sold 15 acres each to Polaris and LG Chem ($20 a square foot), 27 acres to industrial real estate developer Transwestern (around $15 a square foot), and Agenus retained about 66 acres for its own plans, according to Dakin.<\/p>\n<p>DesigneRx has been listing the land, located on Horse Creek Drive, for well over a year and is calling for offers, anticipating a sale price of $10\u2013$14 a square foot. Brooks Pedder of CBRE is taking offers for the Agenus land. LG Chem doesn\u2019t yet have a construction time frame for its planned facility but remains committed to the city, Dakin said. Transwestern continues to look for a company wanting a build-to-suit lease on its land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone had good intentions initially. Then the markets shifted and (venture capital) money changed,\u201d Dakin said.<\/p>\n<p>Amanda Portier, Vacaville\u2019s recently hired economic development manager, said the Workforce Development Board of Solano County is assisting the impacted DesigneRx workers. The impact of the pending plant closure on the city\u2019s biotechnology hub, a particular focus for business growth in the county in the past several years, isn\u2019t yet known, she said. Part of the city\u2019s merging of its economic and community development departments at the end of last year was to \u201cbetter coordinate growth\u201d and \u201cstreamline services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5408\">Mt. Diablo BBQ opens inside Matt Horn\u2019s old space in Lafayette<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe City is currently developing a long-term Economic Development Strategy focused on attracting and supporting key industries, including biotechnology and advanced manufacturing, and we will continue building on partnerships with existing companies and regional organizations to support this effort,\u201d Portier told the Journal in an email.<\/p>\n<p>The Polaris Group\u2019s main U.S. R&amp;D facility is at Polaris Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Diego. The group, listed on the New Taiwan Stock Exchange under the ticker \u201c6550,\u201d opened the 4981 Allison facility as Polaris Pharmaceuticals in 2005 and in recent years changed the name of the Northern California operation.<\/p>\n<p>The parent company develops novel anticancer treatments, led by Pegargiminase (ADI-PEG 20), an enzyme-based drug. On May 25, the company announced it was suspending its phase 3 clinical trial of ADI-PEG 20 with two other drugs for treatment of leiomyosarcoma, a rare, aggressive cancer that starts in smooth muscles, commonly in the abdomen, uterus or blood vessels. The same day it said it was withdrawing its 2023 Food and Drug Administration biologics license application for ADI-PEG 20 to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma, another rare, aggressive cancer, this one developing in the pleura, a thin lining of the lungs and chest cavity.<\/p>\n<p>Studies are continuing for use of the drug for other conditions.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Also on May 25, the company said its board approved approved \u201can organizational optimization and workforce adjustment plan\u201d for its U.S. operations, in San Diego and Vacaville, to help \u201coperational efficiency, reduce fixed cost burden, and enable the Company\u00a0 to better focus its resources on core businesses, key product development, and subsequent major operational objectives, thereby strengthening overall capital utilization efficiency.\u201d The regulatory filing said this change wouldn\u2019t affect overall operations or product development.<\/p>\n<p>The number of jobs affected in Vacaville and San Diego wasn\u2019t specified. There were no WARN notices for the San Diego operation as of Thursday. The company hasn\u2019t responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The Polaris Group\u2019s  doubled from the year before, reaching NT$4.22 billion ($134.4 million).<\/p>\n<p><em>Jeff Quackenbush joined North Bay Business Journal in May 1999. Reach him at jeff@nbbj.news or 707-521-4256.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5406\">Where to find deals on chicken tenders and wings in late July<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DesigneRx Pharmaceuticals is shuttering the largest of its two Vacaville facilities after 24 years in the city. Does this and stalled plans by other companies to expand signal a shift for the local biomanufacturing hub?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Biopharmaceutical firm plans to close one of its Bay Area plants, lay off 25 - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5412\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biopharmaceutical firm plans to close one of its Bay Area plants, lay off 25 - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"DesigneRx Pharmaceuticals is shuttering the largest of its two Vacaville facilities after 24 years in the city. 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