Eisai Inc., an oncology and neurology pharmaceutical company, announced Tuesday that it plans to move its U.S.-based campus to the ON3 campus on the Clifton/Nutley border, where the Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceutical company was once located.
The company, an American subsidiary of the Japan-based company, plans to move up to 1,200 of its businesses and study and progression workers from Woodcliff Lake until the end of 2021, authorities said.
“This ON3 Eisai will combine the Eisai network in one position and foster a culture of new clinical horizons and business innovation,” said the company’s president, Tatsuyuki Yasuno.
Based in Tokyo, Eisai is indexed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a member of the Topix Cien and Nikkei 225 inventory indices. It has 10,000 employees, 1,500 of whom are engaged in research.
On3 director Eugene Diaz said the company planned to lease the entire two-hundred-meter building.
Eisai was inspired through the renovated building, its location, parking and utilities, as well as the site’s ability to co-produce its own electricity.
They were also inspired by ON3’s vision for the property, he said.
Diaz said that when Prism Capital Partners, ON3’s parent company, bought the assets in 2016, he and co-owner Edwin Cohen had a vision of the campus in a position where painters can live, paint and play.
It’s the key to attracting younger, knowledgeable and professional to corporations like Eisai, he said.
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He said Eisai had begun to take a look at ON3 a while before the coronavirus arrived in the United States and that a few days after visiting the site, the company had signed a letter of intent for a long-term lease of the building.
“Given the COVID epidemic and the existing economic climate, achieving this agreement is pretty amazing,” Diaz said. “We are very revered that a company like Eisai comes here.”
Eisai has a number of promising pharmaceutical patents pending, and adds one that will be effective in treating Alzheimer’s disease, he said.
He noted that the remodeling of the 116-acre campus of the former Hoffmann-La Roche headquarters represents the New Jersey remodeling project.
Hackensack Meridian’s Discovery and Innovation Health Center, Hackensack-Meridian School of Medicine, the Faculty of Nursing and the School of Health and Medical Sciences at Seton Hall University, Quest Diagnostics and Ralph Lauren and others are already on site. Diaz asid belongs to a thriving life sciences campus, which he calls a bioecosystem.
“The addition of Eisai solidifies ON3 as a pharmaceutical center,” Diaz said.
The solar of Avenida Doscientos Metro was modernized last year and the marble exterior walls, which adorned the building’s maximum east facade, were replaced by glass.
Diaz said that with Eisai, the campus would be completely busy, there are still opportunities for redevelopment.
They have two programs before the Clifton Planning Council for a two-brand hotel and an 80,000-square-foot medical building. Diaz said Eisai had also expressed interest in a possible expansion of its operations on the site.
Applications for the hotel structure and medical arts were sent to the plan-making council, but were delayed due to the pandemic, Diaz said.
Matt Fagan is a local NorthJersey.com journalist. To get an unlimited number of vital news in your local community, subscribe or activate your virtual account today.
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