A Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical manufacturing company has tentatively chosen the City of Fishers as its new manufacturing hub and, if plans work out, will invest $40 million into a new facility, add about 350 jobs with an average annual salary of $65,000 and provide a new layer to med-tech manufacturing services in the community.
The unnamed company is referred to as “Pharma Entity” in documents submitted to the Fishers City Council during its June 17 meeting.
The council voted unanimously to approve a resolution showing its support for an economic development agreement the city is negotiating with the company. The agreement would provide a 10-year tax abatement for the building and up to 15 years of tax abatements for equipment at the site.
Economic Development Director Megan Baumgartner said that adds up to about $250,000 a year in tax incentives for the company to move to Fishers.
The agreement itself still needs to be finalized and then come before the council for a vote. The company will be named in that agreement.
Baumgartner told the council that the company specializes in manufacturing drug delivery systems — how drugs are administered. An example is the molded plastic pieces used to inject weight-loss drugs. The company is interested in making those drug delivery systems at 12001 Exit 5 Parkway, the former Juno Lighting warehouse building.
“It is a 130,000-square-foot facility, if you remember, that has been vacant ever since Juno Lighting was acquired and they offshored to Canada,” Baumgartner said. “It’s been sitting vacant for a while. The great thing about this site is … there’s about three-and-a-half additional acres that they are really excited about, because that has the potential to then expand this facility, which they feel is likely given the world today in drug delivery systems.”
In a related vote, the council started the process to declare the site as an economic revitalization area. A public hearing on the matter will be scheduled during a later meeting.
Mayor Scott Fadness said he was pleased at the prospect of turning what has been a vacant building for the past five years into a company with good-paying jobs. He added that the new business would complement other pharmaceutical companies located nearby, each of which specializes in one step in the drug manufacturing process.
“Literally, you could throw a football between any one of them,” he said. “One of the most exciting and attractive components of this is, many of these large life-science companies have environmental targets that they’re trying to hit in terms of carbon emission reduction. Well, they can count the short distance now that they have to take their material from one building to the next — before, they might be transporting that across the country. Now, they’re literally transporting across the road.”
Baumgartner said the company’s board will consider the incentive package in July, adding that plans will not move forward until the company signs the lease.
“This is our good-faith effort to put this in front of them. That makes it a very easy decision for them,” she said.
The next Fishers City Council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. July 15 at the Municipal Center theater, 1 Municipal Drive.
