Kyowa Kirin Completes New North American Headquarters in Princeton

On Jul 11, 2023

Kyowa Kirin, Inc., an affiliate of Kyowa Kirin Co., a global specialty pharmaceutical company based in Japan, has completed its new 80,000-square-foot North America headquarters at 510 Carnegie Center in Princeton. The new space will host over 300 employees – across various functions that support all phases of the product life cycle including development, commercial and corporate functions – combining teams that used to be split across two New Jersey locations into one space.

“Bringing our teams into one shared location will enable us to work more collaboratively across the lifecycle as we focus on increasing our impact and work for patients and their families,” said Kyowa Kirin North America President Steve Schaefer. “We designed the space with employee input, with the goal of creating a space that would suit the needs of a dynamically changing and growing workforce.”

A company with a 70-year history, Kyowa Kirin has been steadily growing its market presence in North America since 2018 when it received approval from the U.S. Federal Drug Administration for the first of three first-in-class medicines it now markets in the US. North America is the company’s fastest-growing region in terms of revenue, contributing more than a quarter of Kyowa Kirin’s global revenues in 2022, up from 13% in 2019. During that same time, the company nearly doubled its number of North American employees to more than 600.

The space is fully equipped with collaborative, cutting-edge technologies and includes mostly unassigned and communal workstations, so the company can continue to grow and integrate more team members without adding incremental workspaces. The company also adopted a hybrid work schedule with flexibility offered in schedules around personal needs to support changing employee lifestyles.

“From the start to finish, the design has been rooted in the Japanese idea of Wa, which is all about teams that work in sync or harmony. We want an environment that reflects those ideals and maximizes opportunities for each person to get involved and contribute to our success,” said Britt Byers, senior vice president of human resources, North America. “Throughout this two-year project, we regularly engaged employees to get input on design options and workplace policies. We looked at this move as an opportunity to rethink all aspects of our workplace and spur positive changes.”

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