Pfizer announced Monday it will invest $750 million in its Kalamazoo County manufacturing facility to increase production of injectable medicines and vaccines, including the company's investigational mRNA flu vaccine now in Phase 3 clinical trials.

The New York-based pharmaceutical giant could hire as many as 300 highly skilled workers at its Portage, Michigan, manufacturing site as part of the expansion, its spokesman said Monday. Those workers would include analysts, technicians, engineers, scientists, technologists, quality specialists, data analysts and chemists.

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“Pfizer is making another bold bet on Michigan’s manufacturing strengths and hardworking people,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement. “This $750 million investment will expand capacity at their Kalamazoo facility, creating good-paying jobs and fostering long-term economic opportunity for Michiganders. We brought this investment home thanks to effective collaboration between the state and Pfizer, and I know that Michigan’s future is bright because we have world-leading companies, economic momentum, and the hardest working people on the planet to move us forward.”

Since 2018, Pfizer has spent about $1.67 billion to scale up its western Michigan manufacturing facility. The 1,300-acre site is where Pfizer rolled out the nation's first COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020 and began producing the active ingredients in the COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid.

It has added 711 employees over the last four years at the site, said spokesman Steve Danehy, and expects to employ about 3,400 workers in western Michigan in 2023.

Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said the growth of the Kalamazoo County site is part of a company effort to scale up U.S. manufacturing of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.

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“This expansion is part of our blueprint to grow our U.S. manufacturing base, create more manufacturing jobs, and help ensure patients everywhere can get the medicines they need," Bourla said in a statement released Monday.

The Kalamazoo County site is among Pfizer's largest manufacturing plants and is a global supplier of sterile injectable, liquid and semi-solid medicines, as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients used more than 144 products, Danehy said.

"Thanks to the innovative setup, there is a flexibility for different products in the filling lines, packaging lines and in the freezer facility," Danehy said. "Several different vaccines or medicines could be produced in the new facility, as needed, but there is a clear focus to enhance the site’s expertise in pre-filled syringes and mRNA manufacturing."

Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus. Subscribe to the Free Press.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pfizer to invest $750M in Kalamazoo County, add hundreds more jobs