Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer plans to expand its research and development (R&D) campus in Groton, Connecticut with a $650 million capital investment over the next five years. The drugmaker is building a new 220,000-square-foot facility to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients and drug products supporting company-sponsored clinical trials globally.

Pfizer’s capital expenditure on the project was announced on Thursday by AdvanceCT, a Connecticut nonprofit economic development organization, which said construction is slated to commence in the second quarter of 2027 with operational startup targeted for mid-2031.

The Groton campus is one of the drugmaker’s major R&D centers, supporting scientific discovery, pharmaceutical sciences, clinical development, and the global supply of materials used in clinical research. According to AdvanceCT, the new Manufacturing Technology Center will consolidate employees currently working in other facilities on campus — bringing together related workforce operations — and modernize the infrastructure with a new facility designed to meet the company’s future clinical manufacturing needs.

“Pfizer has a long and proud history of scientific innovation in Groton, where many of the discoveries that advance our pipeline begin,” Raja Mangipudy, Groton site head for Pfizer, said in a statement. “Building on that legacy, the new Manufacturing Technology Center will advance our ability to support clinical research and the development of new medicines for patients around the world.”

Pfizer prioritizes pipeline, operational efficiency

On Tuesday, Pfizer published a comprehensive update of its development pipeline that includes an overview of company research and a list of compounds with targeted indication and phase of development, as well as mechanism of action for some candidates in Phase 1 and all candidates from Phase 2 through registration. Pfizer’s drug product pipeline currently includes 89 candidates.

CEO Albert Bourla told investors on Tuesday’s earnings call that the company in 2026 will advance 10 active and planned Phase 3 clinical trials, including one evaluating a switch from approved weekly therapies to Pfizer’s investigational monthly GLP-1 peptide berobenatide. The drugmaker’s goal is to establish berobenatide as a potentially best-in-class monthly subcutaneous GLP-1 for obesity.

“We have made significant progress with enrollment across our pivotal berobenatide program,” Bourla said. “We are working toward the first in a series of potential approvals for berobenatide in 2028.”

Bourla added that Pfizer has deployed artificial intelligence (AI) with the goal of improving efficiency in manufacturing, while CFO Cecile Guegan told analysts that cost discipline and continued optimization across the company — including Pfizer’s manufacturing footprint — remain priorities. 

“We are making meaningful progress with our productivity initiatives and remain on track to deliver nearly all of the anticipated $7.2 billion of net savings by the end of 2026 for our ongoing cost improvement programs,” Guegan said. “At the same time, we continue to prioritize investment in pipeline programs that we believe have the greatest potential to deliver meaningful breakthroughs for patients and create long-term value for our shareholders.”

On the policy front, Bourla said he doesn’t expect any changes to President Trump’s most-favored-nation (MFN) drug pricing. Pfizer in late September 2025 announced an agreement with the Trump administration to lower prescription drug prices, while securing for itself a three-year reprieve from pharma-specific tariffs and pledging a $70 billion investment in U.S. R&D and manufacturing.

A lot changed over the course of last year. In April 2025, Bourla warned that Trump’s threat of pharmaceutical tariffs was deterring Pfizer from further investing in U.S. R&D and manufacturing.

“It is a very big contrast vis-à-vis what I was telling you a year ago,” Bourla acknowledged in Tuesday’s earnings call. “I was really scared about the implications that either tariffs or MFN could have. I think through the successful navigation of those issues we brought the stability that it is now projected to last.”