Roche Diagnostics will pour $300 million over the next decade into its Indianapolis headquarters. The end goal is to beef up its operations there and add 100 new jobs in the process, the Indianapolis Star reports.
The company, a division of Swiss drug giant Roche ($RHHBY), produces diagnostic tests and services for diseases including HPV, HIV, hepatitis and diabetes. Insulin pumps and diabetes kits are also a big part of the equation, and the division is a significant manufacturer of diabetes test strips. Plans call, in part, for building a $70 million commercial education center where Roche will train 1,500 people annually on how to use its products, according to the story.
Roche Diagnostics president and CEO Jack Phillips told the newspaper that the training center is designed to help "make sure our customers are fully educated on how to efficiently and effectively use our equipment."
Also on tap: lots of renovation, new manufacturing equipment and general upgrades all around. The division employs about 4,200 people nationally, and 2,900 in Indianapolis. Adding the new positions comes as the company is slashing 80 IT jobs, but executives quoted in the story noted they expect the expansion to produce net job growth. They're not talking just yet about what kinds of new jobs will be created, the article states.
Roche's investment in its diagnostics division comes after the company abandoned a widely publicized $6.7 billion bid earlier this year for Illumina ($ILMN), a California-based gene sequencer and diagnostics company. Rather than dwell on the failed effort, Roche said it has shifted focus on building its molecular diagnostics business through internal projects and partnerships instead.
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