Drawing on its new parent company’s resources, Genzyme Corp. plans to grow over time in Massachusetts and increasingly apply its business model to drugs that serve larger patient populations, its new chief executive said yesterday.
Genzyme, formerly the largest biotechnology company based in the state, was sold in April to the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi SA. The $20.1 billion deal set off alarms at Genzyme’s Cambridge headquarters about its future in Massachusetts.
Genzyme pioneered a system for developing drugs that treat rare genetic disorders, such as the enzyme deficiencies Gaucher and Fabry diseases, but is now pressing forward with treatments for more common afflictions, including multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system.
“This is a model that is absolutely scaleable and growable,’’ chief executive David Meeker said yesterday in an interview after addressing a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Boston Harbor Hotel.
Meeker took on the top job at Genzyme in October.
Citing Genzyme’s history of striking partnerships with patient advocacy organizations, physicians, and insurers, he said, “Our model is not defined by small-size disease or large-size diseases. Multiple sclerosis is a large-size disease.’’
Meeker said Genzyme plans to apply in the first quarter of next year for regulatory approval to sell its experimental MS drug Lemtrada in the United States and Europe.
In October, the Food and Drug Administration agreed to review Genzyme’s application for a separate oral MS treatment, Aubagio, and is expected to rule on it in the second half of 2012. Genzyme is currently readying an Aubagio application for European regulators.
But Genzyme, which has about 4,500 employees in Massachusetts and 10,000 worldwide, has not backed away from developing so-called personalized medicines to treat rare diseases. It has submitted an application in Europe for Kynamro, a drug to treat familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited propensity for extremely high levels of cholesterol. It plans to seek FDA approval early next year.
Genzyme’s drug shipments have been hobbled for the past two years as the company recovers from a 2009 viral contamination of equipment at its Allston Landing plant. But Genzyme is conducting trial production runs at a new plant in Framingham and expects the FDA will next year allow it to start shipping Fabrazyme, a treatment for Fabry disease, from the facility.
Genzyme is on track to resume full Fabrazyme deliveries in the second half of 2012, Meeker said.
Speaking at the chamber’s “innovation forum’’ breakfast, Meeker said Paris-based Sanofi is committed to expanding Genzyme’s footprint in Massachusetts and using the company as a springboard into personalized medicine.
“We’re hiring aggressively now in our manufacturing and quality areas,’’ he told the more than 100 business leaders.
Meeker did not specify how many jobs Genzyme is likely to add. But he said the hiring in research and manufacturing is offsetting the loss of some “redundant’’ administrative jobs being eliminated at Genzyme headquarters.
Last month, Sanofi told employees it will close a research laboratory in Bridgewater, N.J., next year and move an unspecified number of jobs to the Boston area, where it has established its US research and development hub. The step is one in a series that will consolidate Sanofi’s global research operations.
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Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.