Dive Brief:
- A startup formed this past summer plans to spend $60 million to build a 60,000-square-foot facility in Fishers, Indiana, as it prepares to offer contract development and manufacturing services to the biopharmaceutical industry.
- Incog BioPharma Services intends to break ground on the new facility and headquarters as early as December and become fully operational in the first half of 2022. The company will focus its efforts on sterile injectible drugs, which have run into manufacturing issues and shortages in recent years.
- The new CDMO joins a growing list of companies aiming to aid in U.S.-based drug manufacturing. The company plans to begin hiring early next year and expects to have a workforce of more than 65 within the next two years, ramping up to 150 by the end of 2024.
Dive Insight:
Incog is building in Indiana as the Trump administration pushes hard for more U.S.-based manufacturing amid continued drug shortages. The federal government in recent months made plans to loan $765 million to help Eastman Kodak shift to generic drug ingredient manufacturing, and awarded $354 million to Virginia-based Phlow to make essential medicines, including those used to treat COVID-19.
Companies are also ramping up on their own. In June, Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing finished a $60 million expansion in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to meet demand in the fill/finish market. And Civica RX, an organization formed by hospital systems to combat drug shortages, has added members and signed agreements with Novartis and Thermo Fisher.
Incog will specialize in injectable drug products, an area that is particularly in need of steady supply. In a 2019 study by the Food and Drug Administration of medicines that faced shortages between 2013 and 2017, injectables accounted for 63%.
The FDA is trying to combat the problem by instituting a system of ratings for manufacturers, potentially incentivizing higher prices and drawing in producers that offer better quality and reliability. The agency announced plans for a pilot program last week.
In choosing Indiana for its headquarters, Incog picked a state that is aggressively courting the life sciences industry. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation cited research showing that the state exports $10.5 billion of life science products, making it the second biggest such exporter in the U.S. The industry counts more than 2,100 companies in Indiana, employing 56,575 people.
IEDC offered Incog as much as $2.5 million in tax credits, conditional on hiring, and may award the company as much as $200,000 from a grant fund for infrastructure improvements. Incog also got incentives from Duke Energy and may be in line for additional money from the city of Fishers, the IEDC said.