Friday, October 12, 2007

Dr. Frank Cox, President and General Manager of Roche Carolina, Florence, addresses those gathered at the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology on Friday to announce a $60 million expansion of the company.

Florence---Roche Carolina Inc. outlined its upcoming $60 million expansion, which will double the Florence facility’s manufacturing capacity, during a 3-D presentation Friday at the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology. “This is the largest investment Roche as a global corporation has made in a chemical manufacturing site since the original decision to build Roche Carolina,” Roche Carolina President and General Manager Dr. Frank Cox said.  Roche Carolina develops pharmaceutical processes and manufactures bulk active ingredients.  The funding is the result of a study exploring how much capacity Roche will need within five years, Cox said. The expansion will employ about 200 contractors and construction workers and is anticipated to create about 20 to 25 high-tech jobs, he said.  Roche Carolina has more than 300 employees, according to its Web site.

The company held the 3-D presentation instead of a standard ground-breaking ceremony with a shovel so that people could get a better idea of what Roche Carolina does, Peter Mazzaroni, the company’s public affairs manager, told the crowd Friday.
The Florence County Economic Development Partnership helped Roche Carolina throughout the planning for the expansion, Cox said.  Dr. Charles Gould, president of Florence-Darlington Technical College and chairman of the partnership, said Roche Carolina and its employees are “part of the economic fabric of the community.”
Cox said Florence is a “strategic manufacturing site within the Roche network.”
The expansion project will add a multipurpose production unit to Roche Carolina’s Old Marion Highway location, which was built with two areas left open for additions.
“It’s a facility that’s being built for when we need it,” Cox said of the expansion.
That means if the company brings a new process to Florence, it can be added to the facility with minimal investment, he said.

Roche Carolina announced the expansion in April and has scheduled construction to be finished by the end of next year.  “The project is on track from a budgetary standpoint as well as a completion standpoint,” Cox said.  Most of the work so far has involved getting bids out and contractors on the site, he said.  Roche Carolina is an affiliate of the multinational group of companies under Roche Holding Ltd.  Roche is based in Basel, Switzerland. It develops pharmaceuticals and diagnostics products and was founded more than a century ago.  Roche employs about 75,000 people in 150 countries.