June 26, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
MONTREAL -- Canadian-based Ropack, Inc. is looking to expand its manufacturing operations into the United State after receiving $3 million in state and local tax breaks to acquire two empty Forest Laboratories, Inc. ’ facilities on Long Island, the Long Island Business News reported.
Earlier this week Ropack, which specializes in contract manufacturing and packaging of generic drugs for other companies, was approved for the tax incentives to acquire a 103,530-square-foot, building at 49 Mall Drive in Commack and a 110,186-square-foot building 155 Commerce Drive in Hauppauge.
Total cost of the acquisition of the facilities is estimated to be $43.6 million. Once the acquisition of the facilities is complete, Ropack said it will hire more than 100 new employees for the new U.S. facilities, filling 33 spots within the first year and 70 the next year.
The average salary of the new positions is expected to pay $45,883 annually. The company currently employs 315.
Current average salaries for a Ropack employee in production range between $40,000 to $45,000 and executive pay averages between $150,000 to $175,000, the Long Island Business News said.
This will be the first U.S. facility for Ropack. Company officials told the Long Island Business News the new site will allow them to establish a manufacturing toehold in the United States and allow the company to increase its production capabilities.
Paul DuPont, Ropack’s vice president of marketing, told the Business News the new site will put the company in a better position to be a contract manufacturing organization. Ropack will use the facilities for lab testing, and the manufacturing and packaging of pharmaceutical products for client companies. The company said expanding into the United States will add approximately $40 million in annual revenue.
DuPont said Ropack has already shown the new site to one of its customers and has begun interviewing for management positions to oversee the Long Island sites.
DuPont told told Newsday the company has been looking for a U.S. site for five years. He said the Forest Laboratories facilities were selected because of their modernity and readiness for immediate use. The company currently has four sites in Montreal which totals 241,000 square feet, Newsday noted.
In 2012 the company expanded its footprint in Montreal to include an additional 36,000 square feet of ambient and cold storage warehousing space and five new validated Class 100000 clean rooms.
Once Ropack completes the move to Long Island, it will join a number of other generic drugmakers including Contract Pharmacal Corp. and Amneal Pharmaceuticals.
Ropack got its start in 1976 manufacturing “short runs” of private label sugar packages before moving into the packaging of products for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
As Rumors Swirl About GlaxoSmithKline Bid, Who Could Suitors Be?
Rumors are swirling that Swiss-based Roche and U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson are eying the U.K. company for approximately $143 billion. But Roche and J&J aren’t the only companies though who have been thought could go after the elephant that is Glaxo.
Last month there was buzz that Pfizer Inc. was considering acquiring Glaxo, a year after it failed to acquire AstraZeneca PLC . Just this month over a third of respondents in a poll conducted by BioSpace believe that AstraZeneca PLC could be in the running to acquire struggling GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
So BioSpace wants to ask our readers again what they predict for this new dealmaking bonanza. Will Glaxo go—and if so, to whom?
