Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) Board Chair and CEO Christopher Boerner, PhD
Bristol Myers Squibb, Board Chair of BMS and CEO Christopher Boerner, PhD, have committed the pharma giant to investing $40 billion over the next five years toward U.S. research and development (R&D), technology, and manufacturing efforts.
“Through this investment plan, we will strengthen our presence across the country, ramp up radiopharmaceutical manufacturing, and invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to help us significantly increase the pace of innovation,” Boerner stated in a commentary published in STAT News.
Boerner did not detail the projects that BMS plans to invest in, specify which ones would be new construction or renovation, or offer a projected number of jobs to be created.
Artificial intelligence (AI) investment has emerged as a BMS priority. Robert Plenge, MD, PhD, executive vice president, chief research officer, and head of research joining Greg Meyers, executive vice president and chief digital & technology officer, recently told GEN Edge the company’s approach to AI and successful applications.
“For more than 160 years, the majority of Bristol Myers Squibb’s employees, R&D investments, and manufacturing infrastructure have been based in the United States. And we have no plans for that to change.”
Boerner’s investment pledge makes BMS the latest biopharma giant to join a growing parade of drug and diagnostics developers that have announced more than $200 billion in new and renovated facilities. Primarily focused on manufacturing, some developers also work with R&D and other operations. The announcements have trickled out in recent months as President Donald Trump’s administration has pressed the industry to make more of its products in the U.S., in part by threatening to impose tariffs on pharma imports.
“In anticipation of potential tariffs, we continue to execute mitigation efforts. We have a broad global manufacturing network where we’re looking for opportunities to optimize with tariffs in mind,” Boerner told analysts April 24 on the company’s first quarter earnings call, adding: “We already have a significant presence in the U.S. and we’re continuing to invest.”
Domestic manufacturing order
Yesterday, Trump stepped up Washington’s full-court press on biopharma to promote more domestic manufacturing, by signing an executive order executive order directing FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, MD, to:
• Review existing regulations and guidance pertaining to domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing development.
• Take steps to eliminate any duplicative or unnecessary requirements in such regulations and guidance.
• Maximize the timeliness and predictability of agency review.
• Streamline and accelerate the development of domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing.
“The FDA Commissioner’s review shall encompass all regulations and guidance that apply to the inspection and approval of new and expanded manufacturing capacity, emerging technologies that enable the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products, active pharmaceutical ingredients, key starting materials, and associated raw materials in the United States,” according to Trump’s order.
That order also directed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin to update regulations and guidance applying to U.S. inspection and approval of new and expanded manufacturing capacity of pharmaceutical products, active pharmaceutical ingredients, key starting materials, and associated raw materials.
Warning on pricing, tariffs
Boerner warned against policies that would cut U.S. spending toward drug production, or set prices along the lines of European countries, which he asserted “has limited the availability of new medicines and significantly slowed their adoption.” Trump’s administration is reported to be considering adopting for Medicaid-paid drugs a “most-favored nation” (MFN) pricing approach, which bases the prices of U.S. treatments on the lowest prices paid in comparable countries.
But the BMS CEO aligned with the president on a key policy priority, urging Congress to extend the series of tax cuts that Trump’s first administration enacted in 2017 through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, set to expire at the end of this year.
“This presidential administration and some members of Congress have championed policies that will strengthen American innovation and competitiveness. Bolstering U.S. manufacturing enables greater control over highly complex supply chains and bring manufacturing closer to where the majority of R&D is taking place,” Boerner wrote. “Extending supportive tax policies from President Trump’s first term would further enhance U.S.-based research spending.”
The largest of the biopharma commitments to U.S. manufacturing and R&D has been made by Johnson & Johnson, which has promised to invest $55 billion over four years. Other biopharma commitments have been made by Roche ($50 billion over five years), Eli Lilly ($27 billion, on top of $23 billion spent since 2020), Novartis ($23 billion over five years), AstraZeneca ($3.5 billion by the end of 2026), Amgen ($1 billion second manufacturing plant in Holly Springs, NC, $900 million expansion in New Albany, OH), and Thermo Fisher Scientific ($2 billion over four years).
Merck & Co. has committed $9 billion, including a $1 billion biologics center of excellence in Wilmington, DE, that has broken ground and a $1 billion vaccine manufacturing facility that has opened in Durham, NC—in addition to $12 billion invested in U.S. manufacturing and R&D projects since 2018.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals last month joined with contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) giant Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies to announce a 10-year, $3 billion-plus manufacturing supply agreement designed to provide U.S.-based production of biologics.
Layoffs in Lawrence Township
Boerner disclosed BMS’ U.S. investment plans the same day New Jersey news outlets disclosed BMS’ planned elimination of 516 jobs in Lawrence Township, NJ, based on a series of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices made public by the state’s Department of Labor & Workforce Development. The 516 jobs will be eliminated in 14 groups starting Friday and running through March 27, 2026.
The 516 jobs are among three rounds of job cuts at the facility totaling 806 positions set to be eliminated this year. BMS began eliminating the first set of 67 jobs April 24, to end December 11. A second round of 223 jobs will disappear between May 22 and August 1.
The state listing of notices did not specify the types of jobs being eliminated or the nature of those jobs, or whether jobs would be cut at one or both of BMS’ campuses in Lawrence Township:
• Lawrenceville—BMS now houses its R&D headquarters within a 276-acre campus on Route 206 consisting of 13 connected buildings totaling 1.5 million square feet. R&D researchers based their focus on discovering and developing therapies in oncology, immunology, and cardiovascular diseases, three of the company’s five R&D areas of focus (the others are hematology and neuroscience).
• Princeton Pike—Employees from BMS’ commercial teams, their commercialization and late-stage development partners from its R&D and Global Manufacturing & Supply operations, as well as their enabling function support teams are based within a 650,000-square foot facility that opened in 2016.
The New Jersey job cuts come at a time when BMS is carrying out two cost-cutting initiatives—an initial plan to eliminate $1.5 billion in expenses by the end of this year, plus a newer effort to slice $2 billion in company costs by the end of 2027, announced by the company on February 6 when it reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 results.
BMS has blamed the cost-cutting initiatives on its need to recoup losses expected as some of its “blockbuster” drugs that have long generated more than $1 billion in sales lose patent exclusivity. Two such drugs will lose U.S. patent protection in 2028—cancer immunotherapy Opdivo® (nivolumab), which generated $9.304 billion in 2024 product revenues (up 3% from 2023); and Eliquis® (apixaban), a blood thinner that racked up $13.333 billion in 2024 (up 9% year over year).
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