Achillion Pharmaceuticals Expands

A New Haven-based pharmaceutical company is bullish on curing rare diseases — and bullish on New Haven.

The company, Achillion Pharmaceuticals, cut the ribbon Wednesday on the recent expansion of its headquarters at 300 George St.

Achillion, which focuses on developing drugs for patients with rare diseases such as paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and C3 Glomerulopathy (C3G), has been in the building since it started operations in 1998. In fact, it was the first tenant after a developer renovated it folowing the departure of the phone company.

Over the years the company has grown from about a dozen employees to more than 80. President and CEO Milind Deshpande said expanding the headquarters to more than 40,000 square feet of office and lab space in the building allows the company to continue growing. Last year the company entered a partnership with Johnson & Johnson to develop the next generation of treatments for the hepatitis C virus.

“As many of you know, our real strength is our discover efforts,” Deshpande told the crowd gathered to celebrate Wednesday’s ribbon cutting. ​“All the compounds that we are programming … have been discovered at Achillion. We have an excellent team of scientists and developers and all the staff that manages the business.”

The increased footprint at 300 George St., Deshpande said, will allow the company to expand by about 20 percent. He said his chief financial officer likes to remind him that every biotech job the company creates it adds about $600,000 to Connecticut’s economy. Achillion tapped local architects from Svigals+Partners to design the space.

“We look forward to the many great things being accomplished in the very near future,” Deshpande said.

Catherine Smith, state commissioner of economic development, said Achillion’s expansion a ​“Good Housekeeping seal of approval” on the state’s strategy of growing its biosciences cluster.

“To see a company that’s living that strategy and showing that it’s possible and really identifying and building upon the strengths that Connecticut is offering is really gratifying,” she said. ​“The biosciences industry is no stranger to the state. It’s been here a long time. But what is exciting is the new energy and life being built into it.”

Smith said the state is adding more workers regularly to advance science fields such as bioscience, genetics and genomics and in fact already has 24,000 working in those fields.

MIke Piscitelli, New Haven’s deputy economic development administrator, called the expansion a significant milestone for Achillion and the city’s efforts to attract advanced science companies.

“It’s very significant for Achillion as another knowledge-based, high science company in the city advancing in their sector, so that speaks to the strength of Achillion,” he said. ​“It speaks to the in that the the bioscience ecosystem continues to grow and cluster in and around this part of downtown, near the hospital, the med school and the train station.”