/* SEO STARTS */ ?> /* SEO ENDS */ ?>
Vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur broke ground on a $150 million addition at its Swiftwater campus, bringing with it more jobs and a renewed commitment to Northeastern Pennsylvania.
The facility will open in time for the 2009 flu season. Its completion will double the capability of making flu vaccine at the Monroe County site, where Sanofi Pasteur expects to add more than 100 jobs. The company, formerly known as Aventis Pasteur, added more than 870 jobs in Swiftwater from December 1999 to June, spokeswoman Ellyn Schindler said.
“We continue to invest and we continue to create jobs,” said David J. Williams, chairman and CEO of Sanofi Pasteur. “Our Pennsylvania location is a very important location.”
The $150 million price tag will fill 145,000 square feet with the latest technology, said Len Lavenda, a Sanofi spokesman. Flu vaccine is produced through a complicated and expensive process, which requires high-quality equipment and no contamination.
“It is an impressive facility,” Mr. Lavenda said. “It is the largest capital expenditure Sanofi Pasteur has ever made anywhere in the world.”
Austin Burke, president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, said the project is the largest private investment he can remember in the region. The only project more expensive was the Casey Highway at nearly $500 million, Mr. Burke said.
The project puts Northeastern Pennsylvania on the map worldwide, because of the importance of the vaccines produced by Sanofi, Mr. Burke said.
State and federal subsidies totaling $15 million helped complete a $40 million sewer expansion the company said it needed for the new facility. The cost for the sewer upgrades is in addition to the investment for the new campus facility.
Sanofi had threatened to move this new expansion to Canada or France unless subsidies were provided.
“The Commonwealth has great respect for Sanofi Pasteur - a company that has
continued to grow and expand right here in Pennsylvania while protecting and saving lives each and every day,” Gov. Ed Rendell said at the groundbreaking.
The company now employs about 1,500 people in its Swiftwater headquarters and about 120 more at VaxServe, a vaccine-sales unit in downtown Scranton.
The new plant will double the domestic flu vaccine capability for Sanofi, which was the only maker of injectable flu vaccine in the U.S. as of last year.
Its capacity was more than strained last season when England-based Chiron Corp., the only other producer of injectable flu vaccine, could not fill orders because of contamination problems.
This year the Swiftwater campus could produce about 50 million doses under normal circumstances, Ms. Schindler said. The company operates six other vaccine plants around the world.
The new plant, previously estimated to cost $160 million, is the latest planned addition in Swiftwater. It joins a $37 million vaccine development laboratory, a $77.5 million formulation and filling plant, a $26 million administration building and a $30 million meningitis vaccine plant.
The company's effort to profit from preventing meningitis got a boost earlier this year when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all 11 and 12 year olds receive vaccinations. Sanofi is the only domestic maker of Menactra, the recommended vaccine.
Vaccine-making in Swiftwater dates to the late 1890s, when Dr. Richard Slee opened a laboratory on a 4.3-acre site. The company, called Pocono Biological Laboratories, made the first glycerinated smallpox vaccine in 1898.
The site has seen several name and ownership changes since. Sanofi Pasteur's France-based parent company, now called Sanofi Aventis, became the latest owner last year.