Since entering the U.S. marketplace in 1997 (when it also entered the Chinese market), Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai has invested incrementally in facilities ranging from Pasadena, Texas, to a major $65-million R&D center in Andover, Mass., to its headquarters in Teaneck, N.J., which employs 1,200. According to Conway Data's New Plant Database, its investments in Research Triangle Park have been in fits and starts: $2 million in 1999, $8 million and 65 jobs in 2001, $5 million and 54 more jobs in 2002.
   Now comes the big move: In concert with a $131-million, 500-employee operation it's establishing in Hertforshire, U.K., Eisai is investing $105 million and adding 84 more jobs at RTP by 2011. Plans include a 65,000-sq.-ft. (6,039-sq.-m.), $90-million facility for the research, development and manufacture of intravenous cancer treatments and a $15-million plant to serve the existing and new buildings with power, steam, chilled water and compressed air. The existing facility encompasses 190,000 sq. ft. (17,651 sq. m.).
   "We are excited to expand our operations in RTP, where our high compliance standards will be instrumental for global regulatory approvals and production of our first anticipated oncology product," said Lou Arp, vice president, production operations, in late February 2006. "The exceptional growth of the company, fueled by our talented and dedicated employees, has led us to expand in North Carolina not once, but three times since 2001."
   The project will see a $1-million incentive package from Durham County and $150,000 from North Carolina. Between 1998 and 2004, Eisai Inc. moved from No. 44 to No. 19 in the revenue rankings of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, with sales of approximately $2 billion in fiscal 2004.
   RTP is also on the finalist list for a reported $50-million, 200,000-sq.-ft. (18,580-sq.-m.), 300-worker manufacturing facility from Silver Spring, Md.-based United Therapeutics. The company is also considering expanding at its home base, which got the nod over RTP last year for a $32-million laboratory.
   Eisai's U.K. project, meanwhile, will become the company's new European hub, encompassing its European headquarters, discovery research, clinical development, and manufacturing, as well as U.K. sales and marketing operations. Approximately 300 of the 500 jobs at the site in Hatfield Business Park will be in manufacturing. Completion is expected in 2008.
   "Society has the right to expect the efficient discovery, development and supply of superior products from pharmaceutical companies," said Haruo Naito CBE, president and CEO of Eisai. "Eisai believes that seamlessly integrating all company functions on a single site improves quality, efficiency and productivity. This allows us to achieve our corporate mission to contribute to improving the lives of patients and their families by developing innovative medicines as quickly as possible. The creation of such a 'seamless value chain' is the principle at the heart of our decision to bring together our European operations on a single site in the U.K."
   Eisai has maintained a research facility at University College London since 1990.
   "I am delighted that Eisai has decided to grow its U.K. business in such a significant and pioneering fashion and particularly that it has located its manufacturing here, the first Japanese pharmaceutical company to do so," said Ian Pearson, Minister of State for Trade. "UK Trade & Investment and East of England International have worked closely with Eisai to bring this investment to Hatfield."
   The European Union stands at the precipice of a new level of research support for biotech and health, as parliament members and elected officials weigh the passage of a seven-year, $3-billion support program criticized by some for its stem cell research provisions. The funding is equal to the entire amount California has pledged for stem cell research alone.