Drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International is moving its headquarters and about 500 workers from its longtime home in Costa Mesa to Aliso Viejo.
The move should take place by the end of the year, according to Valeant.
The company signed a lease this month to take space in the former headquarters building of Fluor Corp.
The engineering and construction company moved its headquarters to Texas earlier this year and still has operations in Aliso Viejo.
Valeant, which makes drugs for neurology, infectious diseases and skin inflictions, plans to take all of a four-story, 109,948-square-foot building at One Enterprise Drive. Improvements to the building are under way.
The lease is for 10 years. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
“We were looking at lots of opportunities and alternatives,” said Timothy Tyson, Valeant’s chief executive. “We wanted to get in a stand-alone building that had the same feel” as the company’s Costa Mesa offices.
The Aliso Viejo office “will be a good fit for us,” Tyson said.
“Most of our workers should have about the same commute,” said Tyson, who lives in Newport Coast.
Valeant is the second big company to announce plans in Aliso Viejo this year.
In April, Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co. said it is set to move up to 1,000 workers to an office building that’s about to break ground there.
Pacific Life is expanding in Aliso Viejo and keeping its Newport Center headquarters.
For more on this story, see the Nov. 13 edition of the Business Journal.
