* Illinois Policy Institute…
Takeda Pharmaceuticals announced Sept. 10 plans to close its U.S. headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois and continue consolidating its operations in Boston, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. The Deerfield office houses around 1,000 employees.
The biopharma company’s decision to shutter its Illinois-based headquarters comes despite having enjoyed one of the most lucrative tax credit arrangements in the state, calling into the question the efficacy of Illinois’ Economic Development for a Growing Economy, or EDGE, tax credit program.
From 2003 to 2013, Illinois issued more than $60 million in EDGE tax credits to Takeda via two separate agreements, according to documents obtained from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. In exchange, the company promised to create 566 new jobs.
No other company in the state received more EDGE tax credits over that time.
…Adding… From Austin Berg at the Institute…
Hey Rich, worth noting that the second Takeda EDGE agreement extended beyond 2013, so they have very likely received even more than $60 million in credits. According to the most recent report from DCEO, Illinois also issued EDGE credits to them in 2014, 2015 and 2016, though it does not disclose the amount.
We published what we knew for sure according to the most recent FOIA data we had on hand from DCEO, which followed the EDGE program from 2001-2013
* More on why the company is leaving from John Pletz at Crain’s…
The move is not entirely unexpected. Its parent company, based in Tokyo, is in the process of buying Irish drugmaker Shire for $62 billion as the drug industry continues to consolidate.
Takeda has been shrinking its workforce in Deerfield, shifting some R&D resources from Chicago to Cambridge, Mass., where it acquired two companies in the past decade. […]
Takeda, which set up operations in the Chicago area in 1977, has been reducing operations in Deerfield for several years. When it announced the proposed deal with Shire, Takeda said it expected to reduce R&D costs by about $600 million a year and trim overall expenses by $1.4 billion. Management expects to reduce the companies’ combined workforce about 7 percent.
But Takeda’s latest move heralds more than consolidation. The health care industry is moving away from traditional drug compounds toward biologics and gene-based treatments. Boston, like San Francisco and San Diego, is a major hub for such research. Although Chicago has some of this capability—at AbbVie, in local universities and in some emerging companies, such as AveXis—it doesn’t have the same scale as Boston.
* From one of Dan Proft’s papers…
Takeda Pharmaceuticals, shuttering its Lake County U.S. headquarters and moving 1,000 jobs to Boston, saw its property tax bill rise 66 percent over the last decade, from $1.37 million in 2008 to $2.28 million last year, according to the Lake County Treasurer’s office.
That’s down from a high of $2.7 million in 2012.
In all, the company has paid more than $22 million in property taxes on his since 2008 on its 380,000 square foot tower that straddles Lake Cook Road and Interstate 294 in Deerfield.
It was the fourth highest corporate property taxpayer in Lake County, after Abbott Laboratories ($9.2 million), Gurnee Mills Shopping Center ($4.8 million) and Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan ($2.9 million).
