Emergent eyes expansion in city

Posted: 12:56 pm Fri, July 16, 2010
By Anna Isaacs

Emergent BioSolutions Inc., the Rockville-based company that manufactures the only FDA-approved anthrax vaccine, could create 120 jobs over five years after its new Baltimore facility is up and running.

Fuad El-Hibri, CEO of Emergent, said he hopes to win a five-year, $250 million contract from the federal government by the end of the third quarter, upon which the anticipated job creation hinges. This contract would allow Emergent to develop an alternative anthrax vaccine to the one it manufactures in Lansing, Mich.

If Emergent lands the contract as expected, those jobs will include basic manufacturing, process development, analytical development and managerial jobs — a “very broad spectrum,” El-Hibri said.

Emergent is a biopharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and commercializes vaccines and antibody therapies.  Programs focus on anthrax, tuberculosis, typhoid, flu and others. Its headquarters is in Rockville, and its manufacturing facilities are in Michigan.

In November, the company paid $8.2 million for MdBio Foundation’s BioProcessing Center on East Lombard Street, where it hopes to begin manufacturing by the beginning of 2012. Renovations and re-outfitting of the facility will cost around $30 million, the company said.

Emergent received a $107 million federal contract to boost production of its BioThrax anthrax vaccine last Wednesday. The company has 180 employees at its Maryland locations — Rockville and a laboratory in Gaithersburg — and 700 employees globally.  In 2009, Emergent had revenue of $234.8 million and net income of $26.5 million.

Gov. Martin O’Malley praised Maryland’s booming life sciences and biotechnology sector at Friday’s kickoff of renovations to the facility.

“You are the epitome of the tremendous opportunities that exist for us in this challenging world,” O’Malley said of the company.

El-Hibri said the company chose to move into the BioProcessing Center because it was already fully outfitted, so retrofitting it is an “easier task” than starting from scratch — both more cost-  and time-effective.

But that’s about it in terms for Emergent’s expansion for now, El-Hibri said.

“With two manufacturing facilities of this size, our manufacturing capabilities are quite expansive, and this is really building on our core competency in the manufacturing area,” he said. “This will do us well in addition to what we have in Lansing, and for the foreseeable future we anticipate that this facility will meet our additional requirements.”