wonder what Roche is using for SARS
Roche says expansion to add 600 jobs
$135 million, 10-year initiative will start by boosting glucose test strip
production.
By Jeff Swiatek
jeff.swiatek@indystar.com
April 17, 2003
Roche Diagnostics Corp. will reap $22 million in tax and other public
incentives for a planned $135 million, 600-job expansion at its campus on the
Northeastside.
The Swiss-owned medical firm announced the 10-year expansion plan
Thursday to plaudits from Gov. Frank O'Bannon and Mayor Bart Peterson.
"To create 600 jobs in a bad national economy we've been going through is
really extraordinary," Peterson said.
About 60 jobs will be created this year, with the rest spread out over the next
nine.
The lead-off project in the expansion is a 108,000-square-foot wing, opening
late this year, to produce Roche's newest blood glucose test strip used by
diabetics.
The city will kick in $12.6 million in property tax abatements and do at least
$250,000 in infrastructure improvements at the site.
The state awarded $7.6 million in payroll tax credits, $1.37 million in training
grants and up to $375,000 in a matching grant to the city for the infrastructure
work.
Most of the economic incentives won't be granted unless Roche follows
through on its building and job-creation plans, which Roche Diagnostics President
Martin Madaus called ambitious.
Roche maintains its North American diagnostic headquarters in Indianapolis,
at 9115 Hague Road. The 150-acre site employs 2,150 people and dates to the
1970s under a predecessor, Boehringer Mannheim.
"We're part of a really exciting worldwide effort to reshape medicine,"
Madaus said. "We're in the right business at the right time, and we have the right
people."
The jobs Roche aims to create will pay an average of $63,000 a year and be
in a range of skill areas, including sales, engineering, production and administration.
The diagnostic firm's near-term growth focuses on its flagship product,
glucose strips. Roche has ranked as the nation's second-largest strip maker,
behind Johnson & Johnson.
The Indianapolis facility aims to increase its production of 7 million strips a
day with a smaller, chemically treated strip that gives results faster and doesn't
require users to squeeze as much blood from their fingertips.
Sales of strips, which are read by meters Roche also makes, are growing
more than 10 percent a year, Madaus said.
Future construction likely will include a new administrative office building and
more space for customer service, he said.
Roche considered competing offers to expand in Florence, S.C., and
Philadelphia.
"Doing this is not contingent" on the government incentives, but "they're an
important factor," Madaus said. "Indianapolis is competitive, for sure."
With Indiana suffering recession-related job losses, including the likely loss of
a heavily subsidized United Airlines maintenance base, Roche's expansion "sends a
very strong message about the kinds of opportunities that are available here in
Indiana," Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan told about 100 people assembled for the
announcement in the newly built production wing.
Madaus said the Roche unit also stakes its future on clinical diagnostic tests
[emphasis mine], including one being developed for SARS, a potentially deadly virus that's
spreading throughout the world.
A team of about five Roche Diagnostic scientists in California is working to
develop a test to diagnose SARS, Madaus said. This summer, Roche plans to start
selling a similar test that can be used to diagnose West Nile virus.
The Indianapolis-based marketing and sales department will handle the West
Nile virus test, which has the potential to sell more than 1 million units, Madaus
said.
Call Star reporter Jeff Swiatek at 1-317-444-6483. |
