Pharmaceutical powerhouse Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) will open a new $23.5 million North American shared services headquarters in Tampa, Florida Gov. Rick Scott‘s office announced Thursday.
The new site is expected to bring 500 jobs to Florida’s gulf coast and is expected to be operational sometime in the middle of 2016. Johnson & Johnson has signed a lease for 110,000 square feet of space on the first five floors of an office building in Tampa, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported. The 500 jobs coming to the area will have an average salary of $75,000 a company spokesperson told the Journal. Many of the positions are expected to be in human services, accounting, information technology and other administrative roles, the Tampa Bay Tribune reported.
Erin Champlin, vice president of Johnson & Johnson Global Services, said the company has a strong presence in Florida and is looking forward to increasing J&J’s presence in Florida.
J&J joins rival Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY) in Tampa. BMS established the 70,000 square foot North America Capability Center in 2014. The BMS facility expects to employ 579 by 2017. The company’s Tampa site will provide technology, marketing, and business and finance support to the firm’s pharmaceutical products, the Tampa Bay Times said.
J&J, which manufactures a plethora of products including its venerable line of baby shampoos and lotions, as well as Listerine and Tylenol, was wooed, at least in part, by $6,370,000 of state and local incentives.
“It’s exciting that Johnson & Johnson chose Florida for its North America shared services headquarters over other states. I look forward to their continued success in Tampa and across the state,” Gov. Scott said in a statement.
The new Johnson & Johnson site comes on the heels of Viskaton, the company’s vision care division, announcing in July it will expand its Jacksonville, Fla. site, adding an additional 100 jobs. The Jacksonville site currently employs about 2,000 people. That investment, an estimated $301 million, will support the expansion and will create five new production lines and a tank farm to support new product launches. Additionally, the company plans to establish a division-wide Center of Excellence for 3D printing, and a Center for medical device laboratory test method development and transfer for the Americas, the company said.
Additionally, J&J has offices in South Florida that manage its medical and surgical device businesses as well as Latin American business, the Journal said.
In addition to the news of the new site in Tampa, J&J announced a partnership with San Francisco-based PCH to help startups create innovative health care devices, Fortune reported. Johnson & Johnson and PCH will provide “office space, funding, product design, distribution, marketing and help with regulatory and clinical matters to the startups, which must apply to join the program,” Fortune said.
By Alex Keown
Source: PharmaLive
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