Lansing — A biopharmaceutical company is building a new facility that will house manufacturing for several vaccines — primarily BioThrax, the only FDA-approved anthrax vaccine — to support growing demand for biodefense products.
The cornerstone for the new structure was revealed during a ceremony Friday at the Emergent BioSolutions Lansing campus, 3500 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
The ceremony took place between the company's older brick buildings — some dating back to 1926 — and the steel skeleton of the new facility. The company is focused on the development, manufacture and commercialization of immunobiotics, or vaccines and immune globulins — a solution created from pooled blood plasma that prompts the body's immune system to fight against disease.
The $75 million facility will house the production of BioThrax as well as other vaccines being developed, including typhoid, hepatitis B and meningitis B vaccines. The company produces vaccines that protect against biological agents, which could be used as weapons of bioterrorism.
The company helps create vaccines for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as for foreign governments.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and Maj. Gen. Stephen Reeves, executive officer of the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Program for Chemical and Biological Defense, attended the event.
Reeves thanked Emergent workers for helping to prevent the adverse effects of biological and chemical weapons.
"You all have helped take those aces off the table with the vaccines you make here," he said.
During the ceremony, Granholm congratulated Emergent for making strides to secure jobs, calling the company's efforts a rich, real example of the future of Michigan.
The company employs more than 450 people at locations in Maryland, Michigan, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Republic of Singapore, with 320 people in Lansing.
Construction of the new facility began in February and is scheduled to conclude in 2007. Vaccine production in the building is expected to begin in 2008. The company is in its 80th year of production.
Steve Moore has been a critical utilities lead technician at the company for 32 years and is looking forward to the new equipment he'll be working with.
"It's showing what we went from and where we're going," Moore said. "I'm totally excited about this whole thing moving forward."
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fuad El-Hibri said the purpose of the company is to protect people's lives.
"Protect life — that's what we do when we wake up in the morning, and that's what we think when we go to bed," El-Hibri said.
