The $250 million drug development project first announced a year ago for the BNMC is scheduled to open i small-scale local operation by February 2014.
The plan to bring Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI) to the Campus, part of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” economic development campaign, has evolved with a second company also now committed to locate here.
PerkinElmer, a Massachusetts company with 7,500 employees, located in over 150 countries and $2 billion in annual revenue, will partner with AMRI and together will become the first two companies to open local offices. The state is investing $50 million to build and equip a high-tech, drug-development facility for them on the Campus.
Cuomo publicized the plan of the AMRI project last December, and academic, business and government leaders spent the past year firming up those plans and deciding where ARMI and its partner should be located on the on the Campus.
The companies will move into temporary space at the Jacobs Neurological Institute, where a small contingent of researchers will work while permanent space for AMRI and PerkinElmer is built within a Conventus. The temporary space at the Jacobs Neurological Institute will employ roughly 40-60 worker and plan to move all workers into their permanent facility in Conventus in early 2015.
Alain E. Kaloyeros, senior vice president and CEO of SUNY Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, stated the Campus the companies will have the most progressive drug delivery and detection lines buzzing with 250 high-tech researchers, innovators, for two top companies in the business.
The state is spending $10 million on construction on the two companies and $40 million to build out the space.
AMRI will conduct drug discovery and development for pharmaceutical clients, and PerkinElmer will supply the equipment needed for the process.
The goal of the drug development project is to leverage state money and increase the presence of the clinical and research institutions on the BNMC to in turn create private-sector investment and jobs.