health care
Roche Carolina Inc. is digging its roots even deeper into Florence County soil with the decision announced in April 2007 to expand its pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. The $60 million investment will result in 25 to 30 additional jobs and a new multipurpose production unit to help the giant drug maker keep pace with demand. The expansion should be completed by the end of 2008. “Certainly, we have found this location is ideal,” Peter J. Mazzaroni, Roche Carolina manager of public affairs, says about Florence County. “We need close access to the ports, the interstate system and local rail, and an available workforce. We have all that here.” Located about eight miles east of the city limits, Roche Carolina currently employs about 315 people, with another 40 or so resident contractors on site. Its two missions are: to research and develop improved manufacturing processes for pharmaceuticals, and to manufacture in bulk pharmaceutical ingredients for Roche products. Roche Carolina has helped bring several key drugs to market, including Xenical (for obesity), Xeloda (for metastatic breast and colorectal cancer) and PEGASYS (for hepatitis C). Based in Basel, Switzerland, Roche opened its developmental laboratories here in 1995. – Sharon H. Fitzgerald
FLORENCE
IAN CURCIO
A Prescription for More Medicine
Equipment in IRIX’s laboratories includes a liquid chromatography machine.
From 0 to 160 in 10 Years IRIX PHARMACEUTICALS CELEBRATES ITS FIRST DECADE OF ACHIEVEMENT What a difference a decade makes. IRIX Pharmaceuticals Inc. hired its first employees in 1997. By the time the company observed its 10th birthday in 2007, it had 160 employees at its headquarters in Florence and a manufacturing operation in Greenville, S.C. “We opened a corporate office here in Florence and, in the beginning, actually rented lab space from Francis Marion University. That was our incubator,” says Miriam Swiler, IRIX vice president of human resources and public relations. Two former Roche Carolina executives, J. Guy Steenrod and Peter Kalaritis, founded IRIX and serve as chief executive officer and chief operating officer, respectively. In 1998, the company bought its headquarters building at 101 Technology Place. “Since that time, you might say, we haven’t put the hammer down, because we’ve been expanding this facility since that time to accommodate
our growth,” Swiler says. The Florence operation includes corporate offices, laboratories and a pilot plant capable of manufacturing enough ingredients for a pharmaceutical clinical trial. The Greenville operation, which began in 2002, includes a pilot plant and facilities for largerbatch manufacturing. In 2006, IRIX worked on 44 active pharmaceutical ingredients for large and small pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology ventures and even “virtual” companies. “There may be an office in Southern California with six or seven people sitting around computers, but we’re doing the lab work here,” Swiler says. Between 30 and 35 percent of IRIX’s employees are scientists with doctoral degrees. “People ask, ‘How in the world do you get that many Ph.D.s to come to Florence?’ Well,” Swiler says, “it’s easy.” – Sharon H. Fitzgerald
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