Drug plant lured by incentives

RTP facility to create up to 160 jobs

Drug maker United Therapeutics plans to build a research and manufacturing center in Durham County, creating as many as 160 jobs within three years.

The company, based in Silver Spring, Md., chose Research Triangle Park after state and local officials Monday promised as much as $825,000 in financial incentives. RTP competed with a Maryland site for the expansion.

United Therapeutics, which develops treatments for heart problems, infectious diseases and cancer, plans to invest $54.3 million during the next three years on a new 125,000 square-foot facility.

RTP is a "very attractive locality in terms of the skill sets that are available and the employee base," said Fred T. Hadeed, the company's chief financial officer.

It also helped that United Therapeutics already has an operation in the Triangle that employs 28 in research, he said.

Winning the expansion is another feather in the cap of this region, which bills itself as a hotbed for drug and healthcare products.

But it also highlights one of the risks of attracting such companies. One driver of United Therapeutics' expansion is an experimental drug that could take years to go into production.

The drug, an oral version of its lead product, Remodulin, used to treat high blood pressure in vessels between the heart and lungs, is winding its way through clinical trials. It requires more testing and approval from the Food and Drug Administration before it can be marketed.

Provided it is approved, United Therapeutics then must get patients. The company says the potential is huge, with many thousands of possible beneficiaries.

But if United Therapeutics stumbles anywhere along the way, its expansion plans could be interrupted.

"There's a certain measure of risk in any kind of business," said Rick Weddle, president of the Research Triangle Foundation that manages RTP and helped recruit United Therapeutics. "My own personal thing is, is this a sunrise or a sunset industry? I will tell you that this is the kind of risk that many economic developers across the country would give their right arm to have."

Many states and cities are trying to woo drug and biotechnology companies. As the population ages and requires more health care, demand for their products is expected to rise. That makes such businesses attractive to communities because they're seen as more likely to be sustained long-term.

What's more, health-care-related jobs often pay better than those in traditional industries. The average annual wage at the United Therapeutics facility, for example, is expected to be $65,000. That's almost double the $34,268 average annual wage in Durham County.

Winning United Therapeutics "is a validation of the environment that we have around the growth of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and life sciences businesses," said Ken Tindall, senior vice president of science and business development at the N.C. Biotechnology Center. That could get the attention of other companies considering a move and attract them to the area as well, he said.

United Therapeutics will receive as much as $175,000 from a fund that Gov. Mike Easley controls in exchange for expanding in the Triangle. The company gets the money in stages over three years, based on the number of jobs it creates. If it fails to generate all the jobs, it won't get all the money.

In Durham County, commissioners Monday evening approved giving United Therapeutics as much as $650,000 in incentives over five years, money that the company can use for site preparation and utilities.

The county pays in phases and the deal will be contingent on the number of jobs created, the taxable value of new property, or both, County Manager Mike Ruffin said.

(Staff writer Eric Ferreri contributed to this report.)