US pharma firm Indivior closes £23m R&D centre

CLOSED: Indivior’s R&D facility in Hull

EXCLUSIVE

By Angus Young

An American pharmaceutical group has closed its £23m research and development centre in Hull.

Signage on the building in Henry Boot Way, Priory Park, was removed last week.

When Indivior opened the centre in 2017 creating 50 jobs it represented the group’s largest ever capital investment in R&D facilities.

The opening ceremony was performed by Jake Berry, who was Northern Powerhouse Minister in Theresa May’s Conservative government.

At the time it was hailed as the latest addition to a growing R&D sector in Hull.

Fitted out with hi-tech laboratories and a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, the centre was designed to pioneer new treatments using the drug Buprenorphine for patients suffering from chronic relapsing conditions and addiction disorders, including alcohol use and schizophrenia.

The drug was originally created by Reckitts in Hull and was first approved for human use in the UK in 1977.

Indivior was established as the Buprenorphine division of Reckitts in 1994 before being spun off into a separate stock listing soon after.

Speaking at the opening of the R&D facility, Indivior’s then chief executive Shaun Thaxter said: “This new state-of-the-art centre is an investment in our mission to pioneer life-transforming treatments for patients struggling with addiction.

“Indivior’s focus on the needs of patients can be traced back decades to the days before Buprenorphine was discovered right here in Hull and developed as a treatment for opioid addiction.”

Last year the group’s shares on the London Stock Exchange were delisted in advance of a corporate relocation to the United States.

In December the group announced plans to cease operations and discontinue the sale of products in several countries, including the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Israel and Finland and Italy with the intention to concentrate on markets in Canada, Australia, France and Germany.

In April this year Indivior announced it was halting two drug development programmes, saying it anticipated a “significant impact” on its R&D operations as a result.

In its annual results for 2025 published earlier this month, the group’s UK subsidiary Indivior UK Ltd said it would continue to manufacture Buprenorphine at its factory in Dansom Lane in Hull “for the foreseeable future, primarily for the sale to the US Group as well as third party sales in Canada”.

The Hull Story asked Indivior for a statement on the closure of the R&D facility in Hull but the company has yet to respond.