New Loxo@Lilly facility brings oncology R&D to Louisville

LOUISVILLE — About three years after pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) acquired Loxo Oncology Inc. in a deal worth about $8 billion, the merged companies stepped into the spotlight Thursday with the grand opening of Loxo@Lilly, Lilly’s oncology business unit that’s housed in a gleaming new space in Louisville’s Colorado Technology Center. 

The new facility, built and designed by Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. and CPG Architects, totals 115,000 square feet and is home to about 150 employees, many of whom are scientists researching and developing cancer treatments such as the lung-cancer therapy Retevmo.

“This is a facility where scientists work to discover new medicines,” Loxo@Lilly CEO Jacob Van Naarden told BizWest Thursday. “Once we discover those medicines, we develop the processes to manufacture and scale,” with production occurring elsewhere. 

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The decision to headquarter research operations for Lilly’s new oncology business unit in Louisville highlights the Boulder Valley region’s emergence as a premier life-sciences hub. 

“Innovation is part of who we are as Coloradans,” Gov. Jared Polis said Thursday before a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new facility, and local biotechnology companies in the Boulder Valley are providing “fresh ideas to meet old challenges.”

Company officials declined to specify the total cost of the facility at 600 Tech Court, but Louisville city documents from 2020 when Loxo was seeking tax incentives for the R&D center show that the likely price tag for the building and equipment topped $30 million. 

Prior to the 2019 Lilly acquisition, Loxo was headquartered in Connecticut with a few dozen workers in Boulder. The Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company has since folded its existing oncology operations into Loxo, forming the Louisville-headquartered division Loxo@Lilly.

“This created a seamless, end-to-end pathway” for the development, production and sales of cancer therapies, Van Naarden said. 

Oncology is a unique area of pharmaceuticals in that the drug discovery-to-approval-to-sales pipeline is often shorter than for other treatments, he said. This condensed timeline can put extra pressure on intra-organization inflection points, which is part of the reason why Lilly opted to break out its oncology division into the new business unit.

With Lilly’s vast resources and Loxo’s startup mentality, “I view [Loxo@Lilly] as a best of both worlds kind of project,” Van Naarden said. 

Loxo isn’t the only pharmaceutical company with local ties to be snapped up by a major international player for a multi-billion-dollar price.

Boulder-based Array BioPharma Inc., which had collaborated with Loxo on cancer-therapy research, was bought byPfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) in a 2019 deal estimated to be worth about $11 billion.

Another major force is AGC Biologics Inc., which has taken over Boulder County manufacturing facilities vacated in recent years by AstraZeneca PLC and Novartis.

Part of the Boulder Valley’s regional biotech emergence has involved developers committing to building office and lab space specifically tailored to the needs of life-sciences companies. 

For example, Dallas developer Lincoln Property Co., alongside investor Federal Capital Partners, is planning a large new office, research and development, and light-manufacturing campus in Broomfield’s Interlocken business park. The project, known as CoRE – Colorado Research Exchange, will be built at 235 Interlocken Blvd. and is planned to total about 450,000 square feet.

Farther west on U.S. Highway 36, Boulder developer Conscience Bay Co. LLC is in the process of planning West Meadows, a 112,423-square-foot, biotech-focused project at 3825 Walnut St. in Boulder. 

Nearby, BioMed Realty LLC made history in April when it purchased a 1,000,000-square-foot, 22-building portfolio in Boulder’s Flatiron Park business campus for $625 million. The company plans to redevelop much of that space in an effort to attract life-science tenants.

“I envision us climbing to a top five leading life sciences hub,” Colorado Bioscience Association CEO Elyse Blazevich said during a BizWest CEO Roundtable in April.