Incentives sought to save drug manufacturing jobs in Berkeley
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 12, 2010
By Tim Bryant
St. Louis County officials are backing tax abatements and a $61 million bond issue to preserve more than 150 jobs and add 200 more at a drug manufacturing plant in Berkeley.
Gallus Biopharmaceuticals, a new company, hopes to purchase the plant from Johnson & Johnson's Centocor Biologics by the end of the year, said Denny Coleman, president of the St. Louis County Economic Council.
Coleman said Thursday that adding some urgency to the deal is the possibility the Centocor plant will close if the sale falls through.
More than 150 people work at the plant complex, which is on LeBourget and LaGuardia drives. Gallus plans to preserve those jobs and add 200 more over five years, according to St. Louis County Economic Council documents.
An ordinance authorizing the bonds and tax abatements was introduced Tuesday before the St. Louis County Council.
Bond proceeds would be used to help Gallus buy the Centocor property and add equipment. The ordinance provides for 50 percent tax abatements totaling about $5.3 million over 10 years.
Gallus, headed by president and chief executive Mark Bamforth, has a letter of intent to buy the Centocor property, Coleman said. The county's project to help Gallus expand the plant is contingent on additional incentives by the state of Missouri and the Missouri Development Finance Board.
Bamforth is a former executive of Genzyme Corp., a Cambridge, Mass., biotech company. Gallus' website said Bamforth was responsible for 12 Genzyme manufacturing sites with 3,600 employees in the United States and Europe.
Coleman said Bamforth "is a very impressive guy with an impressive background in this industry."
