Drug plant will expand, add 84 jobs

Eisai in RTP plans to build a plant for producing cancer drugs, its third expansion since 2001

Japanese drug maker Eisai will build a second manufacturing plant on its 130-acre campus in Research Triangle Park.

The $105 million expansion will add production facilities for Eisai's cancer drugs and 84 jobs over the next five years. The drug maker already manufactures and packages Aricept, an Alzheimer's treatment, and Aciphex, a treatment for gastrointestinal disorders, in RTP. It now employs 255 there.

Durham County Commissioners on Monday night voted to give Eisai up to $1 million in incentives for infrastructure expenses related to the expansion. The money, which will pay for some construction and utility work, is the second $1 million commitment the county has made to the company. In the mid-1990s, it pledged that amount to help lure Eisai to RTP.

"I think it's important for us, if appropriate, to reward companies that are here and want to grow," said Ellen Reckhow, chairwoman of the Durham Board of Commissioners.

This will be Eisai's third expansion at the site since 2001.

Eisai also will receive $150,000 from the One North Carolina Fund and may also qualify for state tax credits as it starts hiring.

The new positions will be for chemists, engineers and manufacturing operators, according to the governor's office. They will pay an average weekly wage of $1,650 plus benefits, more than twice Durham County's average weekly wage of $659 plus benefits.

Groundbreaking is expected in the fall. Construction could be completed in three years and it should be operational in 2009.

The plant will manufacture global supplies of the cancer treatments once they pass regulatory approval. Most of the drugs would be administered in liquid form, either injected or infused intravenously. Injectables must be manufactured and filled under sterile conditions, a requirement that Eisai's existing pill plant doesn't meet. That's why a new plant is needed, officials said.

Research Triangle Park wasn't the only site under consideration for the facility. Eisai, Japan's fourth-largest pharmaceutical company, has its U.S. headquarters in Teaneck, N.J., and research and development labs in Andover, Mass., and Ridgefield Park, N.J.

RTP is home to Eisai's only U.S. manufacturing plant. It has a few others things in its favor:

* the Triangle's pool of workers trained in drug manufacturing,

* the campus itself, which was established with expansions in mind,

* and a strong advocate in Louis Arp, who oversees Eisai's U.S. drug production from his RTP office.

But perhaps its strongest asset is that the 15-member team working on E7389, the most advanced of its five experimental cancer drugs, is based at RTP.

The scientists fine-tune the ingredients and the steps necessary to make larger quantities of a drug, an important step in readying it for production.

The new plant is projected to have a tax value of $35 million, which would bring the county more than $283,000 in taxes

(Staff writer Eric Ferreri contributed to this story.)