Company to bring lab to Triad: Ameritox decides against any state, local incentives for Greensboro center

Oct 22, 2009 (Winston-Salem Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- RFMD | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Business recruiting doesn't come much closer to hitting the Triad's sweet spot than a Baltimore life-sciences company's plans for a laboratory in Greensboro.

Ameritox said yesterday that it would create 228 jobs in 2010 in establishing its second laboratory in a former RF Micro Devices Inc. testing center off Gallimore Dairy Road.

It will do so without local and state incentives.

The company provides laboratory services and management tools under the RxGuardian brand.

The service helps assess whether patients are taking their pain medication consistent with the dosage prescribed by their doctors. It provides individual results by using the patient's height, weight, gender, age and prescribed dosage.

Under the RxGuardian brand, Ameritox provides laboratory services and management tools that help physicians better handle the care of patients who have chronic pain. It said it also performs screening and confirmatory testing on hundreds of thousands of specimens a year.

Ancelmo Lopes, the chief executive of Ameritox, said that the company will create "a mirror laboratory" of its facility in Midland, Texas, by relying heavily on the Triad's labor pool, university and community-college systems and its logistical and distribution network.

"We chose Greensboro and North Carolina because it offered a diverse and talented work force, an abundance of top-tier educational institutions, and is well situated to help our company continue to grow," Lopes said.

"These will be all new positions, ranging from technicians to scientists with doctorate degrees. Our goal is to begin the recruiting process in the next month and be operational in the first quarter of next year."

Lopes declined to provide a salary range, other than saying that "we will be very competitive in the marketplace." He said that the company will advertise its jobs in local newspapers and on the Internet but not on its Web site.

Ameritox initially requested $277,500 in incentives from the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and had talks with Greensboro and officials in the N.C. Commerce Department.

"We decided we have the financial wherewithal to get this project done, and we want to get it done sooner than later," Lopes said. "Our goal is to be a good corporate citizen and take care of our customers."

Playing a pivotal training role will be the pharmaceutical center of N.C. BioNetwork, which is based at Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem and is part of the state community-college system.

Although Ameritox has not identified the training that its employees will need, it likely will range from eight days to eight weeks, depending on the job, according to Doug Drabble, the manager of the pharmaceutical center. "This kind of high-quality quick training is what we were put in place for," Drabble said of the center, which opened in 2004.

Don Kirkman, the president and chief executive of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, said that it is satisfying to have Ameritox decide that it could rely on two of the Triad's new-economy clusters.

"The Piedmont Triad has a significant concentration of assets in the life sciences and medical area, and diagnostics and testing are a significant component of that cluster," Kirkman said.

Dan Lynch, the president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance, said that having a high-tech building requiring limited renovations was another key to landing Ameritox.

"Having the building, the educational setup for life sciences and the confidence of a trainable local work force essentially sealed the deal," Lynch said. "In this instance, incentives were nowhere close to being the final determinant."

Bob Orr, the executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, said he applauds Ameritox's leadership for committing to the project without incentives.

"It's refreshing to see a company that understands what capitalism is all about and reject the intrusion of government into the marketplace through incentives," Orr said.

rcraver@wsjournal.com

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