hen Roche Carolina opened its doors in Florence, S.C., in 1995, 20 employees relocated to the site from Roche's U.S. headquarters in Nutley, N.J. A dozen years later, with many of those employees retiring, nearly all have elected to retire in Florence, a city of about 33,000 located about 80 miles (129 km.) northeast of Columbia.
   "To me, that speaks volumes of people's perception of Florence," says Dr. Frank Cox, president and general manager of Roche Carolina. "Our employees who relocate find the quality of life here to be very appealing. It's definitely a growing community that is an hour from the beach and at the intersection of two major Interstates [I- 95 and I- 20] that help bring a lot of businesses here that normally would not locate in a small town. The largest employers in the area are the two hospital systems with nearly 4,000 employees. The quality of medical care here is unsurpassed in a community of this size in the Carolinas."
   Roche continued to develop the 1,400- acre (567- hectare) Florence site in subsequent years, adding manufacturing in 1998, and recently announcing a $60- million investment to install a multi- purpose production unit in an existing manufacturing building. Plans call for construction to begin this summer and be completed by the end of 2008, with operations to begin in early 2009. The expansion will create 25 to 30 positions, mostly process operators who will be hired locally.
   Roche Carolina manufactures active ingredients for Xeloda (cancer treatment), Xenical (weight- loss drug) and Tamiflu (flu medicine). Cox says Roche makes these active ingredients at four sites around the world, but the Florence facility was selected because of a robust infrastructure already in place.
   "We have the building, the utilities, and the heating and cooling transfer system already here because when we built this site, we oversized those systems," Cox says. "We don't have to make investments in upgrading those systems, whereas we would have at the other chemical sites."
   Roche has developed about 200 acres (81 hectares) of the Florence campus. Cox says the highly automated manufacturing operations were designed with a high level of flexibility in mind. That gives the company the capability of bringing in new chemicals with no major capital investments.
   "Florence, as well as the state, has been very supportive of Roche in terms of tax credits for investments and technical training programs," Cox says.
   Cox says advanced manufacturing training in the Florence region will get a decided boost with the opening of the first phase of the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing & Technology on the campus of Florence- Darlington Technical College this year. Cox says the Institute will be the most state- of- the art facility of its type in the Southeast.
   Roche Carolina's proximity to an Interstate crossroads has provided a great logistics beachhead, Cox says.
   "We ship a lot of products to Nutley and a lot of our products overseas through the Port of Charleston and we import raw materials through Charleston," Cox says. "That helps quite a bit with Charleston just two hours away. Our trucks can be on the road to Nutley within 10 minutes of leaving our site as well. We also mill a product for GlaxoSmithKline's facility in Aiken (two hours away near the Georgia state line at Augusta), and 20 minutes after leaving our site, our trucks can be on I- 20 on the way to Aiken."
   Charleston's burgeoning biopharma sector continues to grow with the announcement that GenPhar will build a $33- million plant in nearby Mount Pleasant to develop vaccines for biodefense, HIV, hepatitis and other chronic diseases. Dr. John Dong, GenPhar's founder, president and chief scientific officer, says the driving factor in the decision to expand in Charleston is the presence of the Medical University of South Carolina. Dong is a professor at MUSC. Charleston was selected over San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Pittsburgh and North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.
   "There is an untapped talent pool in this region," Dong said. "I believe MUSC has teaching and research programs in the same class as many Ivy League schools."
   GenPhar expects to complete the 50,000- sq.- ft. (4,650 sq.- m.) facility by May 2008. It will feature South Carolina's first Good Manufacturing Practice facility for biological medicine. GenPhar has been a research operation thus far. Its expansion into manufacturing will increase employment from 20 to 140.    With its rich textile heritage, South Carolina has long been a hotbed of synthetic fiber production and products using those fibers. Today, much of that manufacturing takes on a high- tech edge, and several companies have expansion projects in the works.
   Finland- based Ahlstrom, a specialist in fiber- based materials, plans manufacturing operations in Bishopville with a $16- million investment that will create 100 jobs. The company will use an existing 116,260- sq.- ft. (10,800- sq.- m.) building. Ahlstrom is also expanding its nonwovens facility in Darlington, about 25 miles (40 km.) east of Bishopville.
   "The Bishopville plant is currently in the ramp- up phase," Jukka Moisio, Ahlstrom's president and CEO, tells Site Selection in an e- mail from his Finland office. "It will serve the fast- growing specialty reinforcement markets, particularly in wind energy, marine and transportation industries mainly in North America and other dollar- based markets."
   Moisio says the $10.7- million expansion in Darlington will add a new needlepunch line targeting the growing dust filtration market.
   "The demand for high- temperature needled felts continues to grow in North America as industries look to reduce atmospheric emissions and ozone pollutants," Moisio says. "The line will complement the current capabilities in this market and improve our position as a global leader of filtration materials. It is estimated to be completed in early 2008."
   Ahlstrom acquired the Darlington plant, formerly owned by HRS Textiles, in early 2006. Moisio says one purpose of the deal was to create a good platform for further expansions that would be located close to Ahlstrom's customers. Moisio also notes that operating costs are lower in South Carolina than in many other states. Ahlstrom's presence in the state continued to grow with the March acquisition of the consumer wipes business of Fiberweb plc. That deal includes four plants, one of which is located in Bethune, S.C.
   "The U.S is the largest single market for Ahlstrom, and we are naturally very interested in further strengthening our position and progress with our global growth strategy," Moisio says. "These objectives may well lead to further organic investments and/or acquisitions, also in the U.S."
   Carbon fibers are an important raw material used in advanced composites for the aerospace and other high- tech industries. Components made of carbon fiber offer an array of advantages including light weight, strength and durability. Cytec Industries, one of the leading manufacturers for carbon fiber, will build its new $150- million manufacturing facility in Greenville. Construction of the plant, which will double Cytec's carbon fiber manufacturing capacity, will begin in 2008 and take about two years. The project will complement modernization of an existing carbon fiber plant in Greenville last year which boosted Cytec's capacity by one third and created 60 jobs. The new plant will add 225 jobs.
   Steve Speak, president of Cytec Engineered Materials, said the plant, to be built adjacent to Cytec's existing facility, will take advantage of rail access and current infrastructure. He says a pool of skilled talent and the available training from South Carolina's technical colleges were other factors in the site decision.
   Palmetto Synthetics in Kingstree, 40 minutes south of Florence, is another fiber company in expansion mode, with plans to invest $2.5 million and create 40 jobs as it adds a 40,000- sq.- ft. (3,716- sq.- m.) building to increase its capacity to produce specialty polyester fibers used in industrial and automotive applications.