Cook Biotech, located in the Purdue Research Park, is a leader in the fast-growing field of tissue engineering. The company will open expanded facilities in the spring of 2004.

Bio-Pharma Sector
Sees Strong Growth

Some of the most encouraging job creation news in the state continues to be in the life sciences. The largest job promise this year comes from Baxter Healthcare Corp., which is expanding its Baxter Pharmaceutical Solutions LLC plant in Bloomington. The 120,000-sq.-ft. (11,148-sq.-m.) expansion will include new manufacturing lines, lab space and administrative offices. The facility will double its capacity in pre-filled syringes. The company's total investment will be $100 million spread over seven years. Baxter anticipates 700 new jobs – 400 from the expansion and 300 from normal business growth through 2006.
        Building on Indiana's growing stature in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries, two firms recently announced and opened headquarters facilities in Indianapolis.
        Start-up firm BioStorage Technologies LLC opened a 22,500-sq.-ft. (2,090-sq.-m.) facility near the Indianapolis International Airport. The company is investing $3.5 million in highly specialized equipment to develop a biospecimen storage management repository, and will hire about 100 people over the next two years. BioStorage Technologies expects to store several hundred thousand specimens during its first year of business.
        AIT Laboratories will invest approximately $5 million at its new corporate headquarters and toxicology lab on the west side of Indianapolis. The move retains 40 jobs and will create about 75.
        Fast-growing Cook Biotech, one of the few firms to bring to market products in the emerging field of tissue engineering, is expanding its operation in the Purdue Research Park. The company is building a 55,000-sq.-ft. (5,109-sq.-m.) manufacturing, research and development facility set for completion in mid-2004.

Logically, Logistics Fits In Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan cites Indiana's central location and ample Interstate highways as reason enough for high-tech distribution centers to consider the Hoosier State. Several recent sitings of these facilities support that assertion:         • GENCO Distribution Systems will employ 113 at a 198,000-sq.-ft. (18,394-sq.-m.) facility in Brownsburg to serve as a return center for Best Buy.         • Also in Brownsburg, culinary supplier Sur La Table plans to create 127 jobs by 2006 at its 198,000-sq.-ft. (18,394-sq.-m.) building. Both GENCO and Sur La Table are in the Eaglepoint Business Park.         • The Bombay Co. is establishing a 300,000-sq.-ft. (27,870-sq.-m.) operation in Plainfield to serve as a Midwest distribution center. Employment will reach 60 by 2006. "This is a great location geo-graphically and has the right support and work force,"says Susann Mayo, Bombay's vice president of logistics and distribution.

        "Our sales growth is pushing us to add manufacturing capacity," says Mark Bleyer, Cook Biotech president.
        Purdue Research Park is the largest in Indiana and is home to several other biotech firms.
        "Our goal is to attract a critical mass of life sciences industries to create synergy and attract highly skilled practitioners, researchers and investors to West Lafayette," says Joseph Hornett, senior vice president and treasurer of the Purdue Research Foundation.

Bayer Sells Complex
To Charity for $1

In perhaps the state's most interesting transaction in 2003, Bayer Healthcare LLC sold its 1-million-sq.-ft. (92,900-sq.-m.) complex in Elkhart to the Feed The Children international charity for a buck. The deal, following a yearlong marketing effort, is actually a bargain for the pharmaceutical firm since maintaining the facility would cost $7 million per year.
        Bayer closed the facility, which once produced Alka-Seltzer, in 2001. Feed The Children plans to use the complex's warehouse as a Midwestern distribution facility and eventually expand into other areas. The charity said it eventually expects to create hundreds of jobs. Joe Martin, senior vice president and general manager, Bayer Diagnostics, says Feed The Children was chosen from among several proposals because "it had the best overall business plan."
        "The Elkhart site will be the cornerstone of our international expansion and will be absolutely critical as we work with various public and private sector partners to create a research and development center aimed at improving the nutrition of children around the world," says Feed The Children's founder and president, Larry Jones.