Royal Philips Electronics N.V. to Bring 800 New Jobs to Nashville
August 30, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
NASHVILLE – Netherlands-based health tech company Royal Philips is heading to the Volunteer State.
The company will open a center of expertise in Nashville and bring up to 800 new jobs to the area, Gov. Bill Haslam announced earlier this month.
“The Philips brand is synonymous with more than a century of innovation, and today Philips is a global leader in health care with a range of technologies and solutions that are having a meaningful impact on health care,” Bob Rolfe, commissioner of the Tennessee Economic Development Commission said in a statement.
Philips has a wide variety of healthcare products such as respiratory care, molecular imaging products and diagnostic services. As the company moves into Tennessee, the new expertise center is expected to service several key company operations that will be consolidated at the facility. Among the business functions that will be operated from the Nashville site are commercial operations, customer service operations, finance, human resources, information technology, marketing, procurement and quality and regulatory functions, according to the governor’s statement.
Craig Gruchacz, Philips’ North American global business services leader, said in a statement that the company is in a state of growth. Opening a new facility in Tennessee will allow the company to meet the demands of that growth and “keep pace” to enable the company to better service its clients.
“The consolidation of our business services will help us to deliver on our continuous improvement goals, with a particular focus on our customer experience, while leveraging the benefits of the growing health technology ecosystem in Tennessee to accelerate patient care,” Gruchacz said in a statement.
While the Dutch company has pegged Nashville for its new facility, the company has not yet selected a site for its new project, The Tennessean reported. Negotiations to find a location and secure an incentives package to support the deal are ongoing, according to reports. The company already has about 150 employees in the Nashville area. The governor’s statement did not indicate when Philips would begin its hiring spree or how long it will take before those approximately 800 positions are filled. That will likely be tied to any finalized state and local incentives package.
Philips has been busy over the past several months. In July the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the company 510(k) clearance to market the Philips BlueControl wearable light therapy device to treat mild psoriasis. BlueControl is a Class II prescription medical device designed for home use.
In June, the company plunked down $2.16 billion to acquire Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Spectranetics Corporation. Spectranetics has developed several devices to treat coronary and peripheral artery disease, including laser atherectomy catheters for treatment of arterial blockages.