Amgen continued its exodus from Colorado and Longmont this week, when it began auctioning off equipment from the Longmont campus.
“Amgen is using Heritage Global Partners for its online auctions of equipment,” explained Amgen spokesperson Kristen Davis. “The auction includes excess equipment from the Colorado facility as well as other sites.”
Amgen is selling everything it no longer needs, from microscopes to hazardous materials bags to spill crates.
Davis said that Amgen will have more of the auctions before the end of the year as it gets closer to shutting down the facility.
The 70-acre Longmont campus is for sale with an asking price of $85 million.
The California-based pharmaceutical company announced last summer that it was closing two sites in Washington state as well as its Longmont and Boulder facilities
Davis said there are currently about 335 staff combined at the Colorado sites.
The campus includes six buildings that total 692,000 square feet, including a manufacturing building, utilities plant, two quality control labs, a central warehouse and an administrative/office building.
Amgen was formed in California in 1980 as Applied Molecular Genetics. A year later its founders opened up a small Boulder office. Its first patent was for Epogen, a compound made to stimulate production of red blood cells.
In 1994 the company bought 650-employee Synergen Inc. in Boulder for $239 million, establishing its Lake Centre facility, which was later expanded. That same year it bought land in Longmont, and in 1999, its Longmont facility was dedicated. In 2003, the Longmont City Council approved Amgen’s plans to add up to 5 million square feet and up to 3,000 employees over the next three decades.
