Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals plans expansion

California-based pharmaceutical company, which makes genetic treatments for hard-to-treat diseases, is planning to build a manufacturing campus costing up to $250 million in Verona starting this winter.

That expansion of Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals — with locations in Madison’s University Research Park on the West Side, as well as in San Diego and Pasadena, California — is expected to bring about 250 jobs to the region, said Arrowhead associate counsel Robert Tiegen.

Verona is slated to foot part of the construction bill, along with other funding sources.

The added jobs, which would include a mix of positions to be paid “five times the minimum wage,” would support the company’s creation of its treatments after their development in Arrowhead labs, he said.

The publicly traded company’s 350 total employees make medicines to “silence” the genes causing diseases that are “intractable” or hard to control.

“We need to have the drugs administered to subjects across the world,” Tiegen said. “The material that needs to be manufactured for them needs to be high quality.”

Within the next few months, construction crews for the 108,000-square-foot space hope to break ground on the 13-acre site, located in Verona Technology Park north of the Kettle Moraine Trail.

The company’s proposal includes two buildings — an 82,000-square-foot manufacturing space, along with a three-story structure meant for offices and labs.

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