Biotech company Amgen broke ground on a $600 million new facility in Thousand Oaks on Thursday.
It’s being called one of the largest private investments in Ventura County history.
"What this building — we call it the Science and Innovation Building — means for us is that we'll continue to facilitate the collaboration between our research scientists and our process development engineers, and manufacturing professionals," said Estaban Santos, Global Operations head for Amgen. "We hope to turn great and amazing discoveries from our research labs into medicines that can actually help patients."
He added that the facility will foster collaboration, bringing researchers under one roof.
"We believe that collaboration is really critical in biosciences," said Santos. "What we do is really complex."
Community leaders call the project an economic game-changer for the region.
"This investment is going to be transformative to this campus, to this region, and to the field of bioscience," said Thousand Oaks City Manager Drew Powers.
The goal is to have the new complex up and running in 2029.
