Biotech firm promised jobs at an old Morrisville mall. It just lost its incentive.
.jpg "The diagnostic testing company Invitae briefly occupied The Stitch at the former Morrisville Outlet Mall off Airport Boulevard in Morrisville, N.C.")
A genetics testing company that agreed to bring a few hundred jobs to a former Morrisville mall had its state incentive pulled Tuesday for failing to file a necessary annual report.
The North Carolina Economic Investment Committee canceled the 2021 job development investment grant for Invitae Corp. to hire 374 people at a new Wake County testing and laboratory site. Invitae could have received up to $6.7 million in tax benefits had it reached its hiring target and invested $114.6 million locally.
Instead, the California company received no state dollars as it spent much of last year going through bankruptcy. After filing for Chapter 11 in February 2024, Invitae agreed to be sold to the clinical lab-services giant Labcorp., which is based in the Alamance County city of Burlington.
State and local leaders had initially celebrated Invitae’s arrival. Four years ago, the then-public company promised to pay Triangle workers average salaries of $91,176 and be one of the first businesses to enter The Stitch, a life science redevelopment at the old Morrisville Outlet Mall off Airport Boulevard.
Invitae signed a 14-year lease at The Stitch in 2021 but is no longer a tenant at the now-empty center. Shedding real estate was among the cost-cutting moves the company made in 2022 and 2023. During this period, Invitae also laid off more than 1,000 workers.
Labcorp won the bankrupt company’s assets with a $239 million bid last year. Combined, the two firms today advertise more than 6,500 medical tests. The Invitae catalog includes tests on hereditary cancers and gene disorders, many of which can be completed at home by mailing in saliva samples.
Another JDIG doesn’t make it
Since North Carolina began awarding JDIGs in 2003, more companies have exited their deals early than completed them. Over the program’s first 20 years, more than one in five JDIG projects ended before any taxpayer money went to a grant recipient. An additional 91 grants terminated early with some public funds allocated after recipient companies created or retained some jobs.
JDIGs are the main tool the state offers new businesses to move to North Carolina and existing businesses to expand. They typically stretch 12 years and are realized through payroll tax rebates, which help recipients lower their tax bills so long as the employers meet annual hiring and investment targets mutually agreed upon with the state.
With a laboratory in Research Triangle Park, Labcorp is among the 20 largest employers in Durham County. However, it too has had a North Carolina job development investment grant recently canceled.
Two years ago, the company asked out of its 2018 grant to hire 422 workers in Durham County, telling the state it wouldn’t reach its jobs target after it split off its clinical development division into a new business.
