A major transition has been finalized in the north county.

ImmunityBio Inc., a clinical-stage immunotherapy company, announced Tuesday it has completed acquisition of the leasehold interest in manufacturing space in Dunkirk from global pharmaceutical company Athenex, Inc. The new state-of-the-art biotech production facility enables ImmunityBio to substantially expand and diversify its existing manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and through its strategic collaborators in Africa.

“We are thrilled to add the Dunkirk manufacturing facility and the talented team running it to our organization,” said Richard Adcock, president and chief executive officer of ImmunityBio. “This facility provides production capacity at a significant scale here in the U.S. and at significantly lower capital cost than building a facility like this from the ground up. It is an important component of our overall strategic growth plan, accelerating our ability to develop, prove, and bring to market our most promising products and therapies in competitive and regulated markets.”

ImmunityBio’s manufacturing capacity has been growing in the last five years. The company said it plans to further invest in the Dunkirk plant by adding state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and transferring technology from California to this large-scale production plant, and anticipates it will begin producing COVID vaccine drug substance by the end of this year.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and executive chairman of Immunity Bio, told the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency in a Zoom call in January, his company is focused on the global COVID-19 battle. “We’ve been saying since March 2020 when COVID broke, and presented it to both administrations now, that unless we develop a vaccine that gives you durable long-term immunity, across every variant, we won’t get rid of this pandemic,” he said.

Athenex estimated the transaction at nearly $40 million, with a portion of the proceeds from the deal to be used to service the company’s debt obligations, and for other general corporate purposes.

“We are pleased with the opportunity to partner with ImmunityBio on the sale of our leasehold at the Dunkirk facility,” said Jeffrey Yordon, Chief Operating Officer, President Athenex Pharmaceutical Division, “They are well positioned to build on the foundation that we established in this state-of-the-art facility, and we look forward to continuing to work with the Dunkirk team in the future as a contract manufacturing partner.”

During trading Tuesday afternoon both companies we seeing increases as the Athenex stock was around 86 cents per share while ImmunityBio was trading at $7 per share.