Austin XBiotech firm on Phase I of $200M campus

AUSTIN – XBiotech USA Inc., an emerging Austin drug developer, has broken ground on the first manufacturing and research (R&D) facility at its 48-acre site off Riverside Dr. in Southeast Austin.

The R&D facility is expected to eventually house a $200 million campus of buildings.

The 46,000-sf building will cost “no more than $12 million,” according to company President and CEO John Simard.

Currently, there is no firm timeline for the start of construction of a second manufacturing and research building — the campus will eventually feature several such buildings and employ about 2,000 people.

Construction is expected to finish by mid-2015 and start manufacturing and shipping the company’s colorectal cancer-fighting drug Xilonix by early 2016. That drug is currently going through Phase Three trials in the United States and Europe.

XBiotech is privately held company that was started in the mid-2000s and has raised more than $50 million. The company is constantly raising capital to fund development and clinical trials, with a new drug intended to fight MRSA-resistant staph infection expected to start clinical trials in late 2014 or early 2015.