UCB SA said it will build a €300-million manufacturing unit in Belgium and hire about 150 employees for it.

The Brussels-based pharmaceutical company said it expects the multi-product biological manufacturing facility to be operational by 2024.

The unit will be constructed at Braine l'Alleud in Wallonia, Belgium, UCB added.

"The shift of our pipeline towards large molecules requires us to ramp up investment in mammalian technical development, as well as our manufacturing capabilities," UCB executive vice president Kirsten Lund-Jurgensen said in a statement.

Earlier this year, UCB entered an agreement to acquire autoimmune disease therapy developer Ra Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a $2.1-billion deal which is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020.