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North Carolina, Maryland vie for drug-making plant
(News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 24--North Carolina is competing with Maryland to land a drug manufacturing plant that would bring at least 150 jobs. To lure the $54 million project to Research Triangle Park, state and local officials are working on an incentive package.
United Therapeutics wants to build the plant to make a drug for pulmonary arterial hypertension, a cardiovascular disease that leads to heart failure if left untreated.
Two possible locations are under consideration, said David
Zaccardelli, a senior executive in charge of United Therapeutics' pharmaceutical research and development. The plant could be built on land the company already owns next to its headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., or on 50 acres in Research Triangle Park.
"It's contingent upon economic incentives," Zaccardelli said.
Durham County Commissioners are expected to vote Monday on whether to offer the company a $650,000 incentives package. The cash could be used for site preparation, utility extensions and employee training.
But United Therapeutics is also discussing incentives with economic developers in Maryland, Zaccardelli said.
North Carolina could sweeten the offer to tip the scale in RTP's favor -- especially since United Therapeutics is promising to create the kind of jobs that Gov. Mike Easley has identified vital for the state's economy.
State incentives usually include job creation grants. Members of the state's economic investment committee determine the amount of the grants based on the type of job and how much they pay, said Greg Thomas, a spokesman of the N.C. Department of Commerce. Grants tend to be higher if the jobs are knowledge-based and pay well. "They look for high impact projects," Thomas said.
Biotech and pharmaceutical companies are considered high-impact, as are projects involving manufacturing and research and development, Thomas said. But he declined to talk about any particular project.
United Therapeutics was founded in 1996 in the Triangle with a drug licensed from Glaxo Wellcome. Shortly after, the headquarters was established in Maryland, where CEO Martine Rothblatt lives.
The company still leases space in RTP, where it employs 25. That operation oversees the testing of cardiovascular and infectious disease treatments and works with regulators to get new drugs approved for sale.
One of the experimental drugs in the development pipeline is a pill version of Remodulin, an injectable treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension that United Therapeutics brought to market in 2002. Oral Remodulin is in final testing and is expected to become available as early as 2008.
The company plans to make the pill at the 125,000-square-foot-plant it is considering building in RTP or Silver Spring.
Having the scientists who oversaw the development nearby would help with manufacturing the pill, said Zaccardelli, who works out of the RTP office.
The Triangle also has the kind of trained labor pool that's needed to staff such a plant. "It would be nice to expand here," he said.
Similar arguments convinced U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck to build a $300 million vaccine manufacturing plant north of Durham, and Japanese drug maker Eisai to expand its RTP operations and build a $105 million plant to produce cancer drugs.
If RTP gets the United Therapeutics plant, it is also likely to get an expansion that is already being planned, Zaccardelli said. The expansion would double the size of the plant to make the injectable version of Remodulin.
Ted Conner, vice president of economic development for the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, would just like to see United Therapeutics plant roots in the Triangle.
It's easy to move out of leased space, but "if you own a building, you're a lot more permanent," Conner said.
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