cientists at Sanofi-Aventis' Oro Valley Combinatorial Technologies Center near Tucson are at the bleeding edge of drug development, integrating chemistry, biology, analytics and data management to find new treatments for the full spectrum of diseases. These early-stage drug developers will find themselves in a new, greatly expanded home by mid-2009.
      France-based Sanofi-Aventis is investing US$40 million to build a 110,350-sq.-ft. (10,250-sq.-m.) facility in Innovation Park, a technology park with an affinity for the life sciences. The new building will more than double the size of the company's current facility in Oro Valley.
      "We looked at Innovation Park because it is being developed as a biopark area," says Beth Koch, administrative site director for Sanofi-Aventis. "Moving to Innovation Park and watching it expand and bring in other companies like ourselves is very exciting."
      Sanofi-Aventis has been in Oro Valley since 1990, and its operations there trace to a start-up from the University of Arizona. The company currently employs 67, and will have capacity for 108 at its new facility.
      "We are the only combinatory chemistry group still intact in the pharmaceutical industry," Koch says. "Our organization looks for creativity and passion from its scientists. The real reason for our expansion is our scientists. They got the attention of our company. Sanofi-Aventis is looking for more out of our team, and allowing us to expand. Our scientists are looking for the next compound that will lead to the next new drug. They are very creative. We are in every therapeutic area that Sanofi-Aventis is in. We're unique in that regard."
      The new facility will be Sanofi-Aventis' only company-owned facility in the U.S.
      The quality of life Oro Valley offers is another plus for the company's researchers, Koch says. Many of them hike or bike to work, she says.
      "It's beautiful here. We're in a desert surrounded by mountain ranges. When people come to the area, they fall in love with it and don't want to leave."
      Sanofi-Aventis' new building will be LEED certified, Koch says, noting that the Town of Oro Valley voted last year to have all of its buildings LEED certified.
      "We are going for silver, but we don't know if we can reach that," she says. "The company is committed to designing and having a safe work place. We are also looking at ways we can use recycled materials."       Beauty products targeting an aging population constitute a growing business in the U.S. One company benefiting from this ongoing surge is Medicis, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based marketer of aesthetic and dermatological products. The 20-year-old company is growing through demand for its signature product, Restylane, and through strategic acquisitions. To accommodate current and projected growth, Medicis moved into a new 150,000-sq.-ft. (14,000-sq.-m.) headquarters building in Scottsdale in July. The new facility, developed for Medicis by the Alter Group, will be home to the company's current 400 employees.
      "We have expansion plans to grow to a much larger level of employees, as we are very aggressive in acquiring companies and technologies," says Mark Prygocki, executive vice president and COO. "In our real estate plan, we determined how many people we would have over the next 10 years and went through several iterations of numbers about our space needs. We wanted a facility that would hold more than 1,000 people and still be at one location. That narrowed our choices."
      Medicis has an option for Alter to build a second building adjacent to the first as the company grows in the coming years. Prygocki says that while Medicis considered several sites in the Scottsdale-Phoenix area, the company never considered moving from its home base.
      "We went to our HR database, looked at where our 400 employees live and picked a central location based on where they live now," Prygocki says. "We also looked at where our next 600 employees will come from, and we ended up here. We never considered looking outside of Maricopa County. Quality of life is what drives people to Arizona."
      Medicis is leasing its headquarters because it prefers to focus on selling its pharmaceutical products rather than be in the real estate business, Prygocki says. He describes the new headquarters, which features an open work area and numerous employee amenities, as a next-generation facility.
      "It's an office-free location," Prygocki says. "Everyone, including our executives, is in work stations. It's a very efficient way of working. People aren't sitting behind doors, and it allows people to walk up to one another and collaborate. We are also wireless throughout the building, so any workplace in the building can be your desk. Our goal here is to expedite the decision-making process."
      Medicis contracts manufacturing of its products to companies around the globe. The company holds the U.S. and Canada marketing rights for Restylane, a product used to fill in wrinkles and enhance lips which is manufactured by Swedish biotech and medical device firm Q-Med. Medicis also markets a variety of dermatological pharmaceuticals, including Dynacin, which is used to treat acne.       A new facility in Tucson will help solve the growing demand for U.S. passports. Stanley, Inc., a provider of systems integration and professional services to the U.S. Federal Government, began processing passports in May at its Tucson Passport Center. Stanley provides facility operations and production support for the U.S. passport as well as other travel documents at the facility.
      The TPC is the second of two mega-processing centers that Stanley has built in the past two years for the Department of State in response to the rise in passport demand resulting from the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. It is anticipated that more than 18 million passports will be produced in the government's fiscal year 2008.
      The TPC began processing passports on May 5, 2008. Its sister facility, the Arkansas Passport Center, was opened in March 2007. These two centers represent a dynamic new approach to the passport production process, separating the printing from the processing and adjudication functions supported by the Department of State's other centers and agencies nationwide.
      "This project was a team effort from start to finish, and all involved should take pride in their contribution to the Department of State's critical mission of providing passport services to the American public," said Phil Nolan, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Stanley. "We are both proud and excited to be participants in this endeavor."
      Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Janice L. Jacobs, Tucson Mayor Robert E. Walkup, and other government officials were in attendance at the ribbon cutting.
      Stanley was awarded a 10-year contract in October 2006 to construct the two contractor-supplied and operated turnkey facilities in Arizona and Arkansas. The city of Tucson offered a strong local work force, among other factors, which led to it being chosen as the site for one of the facilities.
      SPG Solar, Inc., The Gatorade Company, a division of PepsiCo (PEP), and Salt River Project (SRP) Earthwise Solar announce the largest solar energy initiative in Arizona at the Gatorade manufacturing and distribution facility in Tolleson, Ariz. NFL Star, Arizona Cardinals Quarterback Matt Leinart also joined Arizona government officials and representatives in making the announcement.
      The photovoltaic system, which will be installed by SPG Solar on the distribution center roof, is expected to produce more than 760,000 kilowatt hours per year – the equivalent amount needed to power 50 households for a calendar year and will result in an estimated carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction of 491 metric tons a year or 12,000 metric tons over 25 years. The solar panels at the 797,000-sq.-ft. (74,041-sq.-m.) Gatorade distribution center, which houses up to 5.5 million cases at a time, will generate electricity through advanced photovoltaic devices that capture the sun's energy.
      Millions of Gatorade bottles are manufactured and warehoused at the Gatorade site, which has already received Gold-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and will soon generate solar energy for the State of Arizona thanks to an incentive from SRP.
      PepsiCo's Gatorade business has become SRP's largest EarthWise Solar Energy commercial customer with the planned installation of a 500-kilowatt system to provide electricity to the site, which includes a manufacturing and distribution center.
      "This solar energy project by the Gatorade Arizona plant is good for the environment and good for Arizona and underscores our comprehensive commitment to environmental sustainability," said Jim Lynch, senior vice president of PepsiCo Chicago. "Environmental sustainability is one of the three pillars in PepsiCo's overall sustainability vision, which we call Performance with Purpose." "We are proud to be a part of PepsiCo's commitment to environmental stewardship and encourage other Valley businesses to invest in this clean energy source," said Lori Singleton, SRP Manager of Sustainable Initiatives and Technologies.
      The panels are scheduled to be installed in early September, and the system will begin producing power in November. The SRP incentive for this project will be $1.2 million.
      "We are very pleased to support Gatorade with this project, and appreciative of the program and professionalism from SRP that makes this possible," said Ed Orrett, senior sales executive with SPG Solar.