With Diagnostics Unit Set to Grow, Enfer Group Opens New HQ in Ireland’s County Kildare
Ireland-based Enfer Group has dedicated its new headquarters at the M7 Business Park in Nass, County Kildare. The headquarters consist of two facilities totaling 50,000 square feet.
Enfer, a global provider of diagnostics for animal disease management, now employs 120 people. The company expects to double that number over the next 18 months following the recent launch of its Enfer Diagnostics unit, which markets veterinary diagnostics tests in the US and Europe. In June, the company announced a partnership with AnDiaTec of Germany to develop and commercialize tests for bovine viral diarrhea virus and ParaTB.
Enfer officially dedicated its new headquarters Sept. 27 through a group of dignitaries that included company executives and Ireland’s Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern.
Tandem Labs Expands NJ Operations to 23,000 Sq. Ft. With New Facility
Tandem Labs has unveiled a new 9,000-square-foot facility in West Trenton, NJ, at 370 Sullivan St., across from its existing West Trenton laboratory at 115 Silvia St. The new addition increases the company's New Jersey operations to 23,000 square feet.
The new facility, unveiled Oct. 1, will house administrative functions, including data management, quality assurance, and business development, allowing Tandem Labs to use all of the 14,000 square feet at 115 Silvia St. as a laboratory space. The expansion will also allow the company’s biomarker and immunoanalytical division and its sample receipt center to grow as well. Tandem said the expansion will also allow for increased drug discovery and development activities.
Tandem Labs carries out GLP-compliant bioanalysis on LC/MS/MS and other immunoanalytical platforms in West Trenton. The site is one of three operated by Tandem Labs in the US; the others are in Salt Lake City and Woburn, Mass.
PRA International Relocating Corporate Headquarters to Raleigh, NC
PRA International has announced that it will relocate its corporate headquarters by year’s end from Reston, Va., to the Raleigh, NC, area.
Terrance Bieker, CEO of PRA International, said in a press release the move will allow his company to integrate its administrative functions with operations — something he said could not be done at its current HQ — and place it closer to existing and potential new clients, provide ready access to “highly qualified” workers, and lower its infrastructure costs.
“We expect to begin aggressive hiring in October and hope to attract 500 administrative and operations employees over the next five years,” Bieker said in the Sept. 25 announcement. “We believe this move to Raleigh will position us well to achieve our future growth targets."
He said most of the 37 people located in or working regionally from the Reston office have been invited to move to the Raleigh area. PRA will allow some of those staffers to work from home while others will be shifted to its offices in Charlottesville, Va., where the company plans to continue some of its corporate support services. PRA said it expects to take a charge of about $1.7 million associated with the corporate headquarters relocation.
PRA said its headquarters move was unrelated to its pending merger with affiliates of Gemstar Capital, a private equity firm based in San Francisco. That merger is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
Construction Kicks Off on Wet Lab LaunchPad at Piedmont Triad Research Park
Wake Forest University’s Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem, NC, has officially begun construction of the Wet Lab LaunchPad in the new Richard H. Dean Biomedical Research Building. The Wet Lab LaunchPad is designed to provide affordable laboratory space for start-up biotech firms. The space is on the first floor of the Dean Building and will include three separate labs and accompanying office space.
The labs range from 1,036 to 1,336 square feet, and include two furnished offices and space for storage. PTRP encompasses six buildings, providing over 554,000 square feet of wet lab, office, meeting and residential space, and is home to 15 life science, 11 information technology and eight business services tenants. Over the next 30 years, PTRP plans to expand to 5.7 million square feet of mixed-use space.
Work on the Wet Lab LaunchPad concept began in 2005. At the request of Gwyn Riddick, regional director of the Piedmont Triad office of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Randal Pool, the managing principal of Stantec Consulting, headed up the Wet Lab Concept Team and began to recruit builders and suppliers to help upfit the proposed space. Doug Dreyer, a vice president of Kirkland Incorporated of High Point, NC, agreed to provide general contracting management, in consultation with Tom Ingram of Wake Forest University Health Sciences, project manager at the research park.
Dean, Pool, and Ingram raised funds for the project, with Wake Forest University Health Sciences making what it called “a major contribution.” About two dozen other companies have also contributed funding or services to the project.
The Wet Lab LaunchPad is expected to be completed on or about Dec. 1.
CRM Provider Eyes Biopharma Market after Expanding Within Kalamazoo, Mich.
SalesPage Technologies, a provider of customer relationship management software, plans to expand its customer base to biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical companies after it completes a move of its headquarters within Kalamazoo, Mich., to 11,500 square feet at the Airview Center (2725 Airview Blvd.), a 37,00-square-foot building near the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek Regional Airport.
The move is designed to accommodate the company’s anticipated 50 percent growth in personnel over the next three years to support the rollout of a new software solution platform. In a press release announcing the move, SalesPage vice president of sales and marketing Michael Pessetti said the privately held company expected to double its revenue, which it did not disclose, by 2010 and quadruple it by 2015.
“We need a larger space to accommodate the additional people we’ll bring on board to continue our market and product expansion,” Pessetti said in the release.
SalesPage, which has 29 employees, began operating Oct. 1 from its new space in the Airview Center located at 2725 Airview Boulevard, vacating 9,000 square feet at 227 N. Rose St.
Founded in 1983, the company’s customers include investment management firms and insurance brokerages.