Georgia’s budding bioscience industry gets a boost Tuesday with the announcement that a Texas nonprofit will open a testing laboratory in Gwinnett County.
QualTex Laboratories expects to invest $12 million and hire 125 scientists, technicians and support staff within three years, CEO Norman Kalmin told The Atlanta Journal Constitution on Monday.
QualTex, an affiliate of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center in San Antonio, conducts infectious disease testing for blood banks and plasma centers across the United States.
Its new Norcross lab also might handle testing for European plasma centers. Europe and the U.S. are expected to increase plasma testing for HIV/Aids, hepatitis, Mad Cow and other diseases. Testing of cord blood and tissues also could boost QualTex’s work, and hires, in Atlanta.
“There are 140 plasma centers scattered throughout the country that send their samples to us for infectious-disease testing,” Kalmin said. “At the moment, we test seven million samples a year. We expect to double that number the next three to five years. And our San Antonio facility is at maximum capacity, (so) the Atlanta facility will handle that growth.”
QualTex was spun off from the South Texas center in 2007 and is now the largest independent testing lab in the country for blood and plasma products, according to the company.
Kalmin, who trained as a pathologist with the American Red Cross in Atlanta in the 1980s, said he chose Norcross for its location, access to the airport and the 32,000-square-foot building at 3055 Northwood Circle. He also expects to readily find qualified scientists and technicians in the area.
A nonprofit, no tax breaks were given QualTex, according to the state’s department of economic development, which helped land the company. Kalmin wouldn’t identify other states that competed for the lab.
QualTex burnishes Georgia’s attempt to build a first-rate bioscience industry to compete with California, Massachusetts and North Carolina. The state’s life science industry, companies, universities and research institutions that bio-engineer medicines, fuels and foodstuffs, brings a $17 billion economic boost to the state, according to the nonprofit Georgia Bio trade group.
Roughly 17,000 people work in the state's relatively well-paid bioscience industry, which offers an average annual salary of $63,317. Georgia is the nation’s seventh-best state for biotech, according to a 2006 Ernst & Young survey.
“We have a diverse industry, so it’s not surprising to me that a life science company like QualTex would want to locate here,” said Charles Craig, Georgia Bio president.
Georgia, though, has a reputation for being unfriendly to cutting-edge biotech companies. The Georgia Senate last year approved a bill to prohibit a type of stem-cell research. The legislation died in the house, but not before giving the state a business-recruitment black eye.
The blemish fades somewhat with Tuesday's announcement by QualTex.
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