RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IQVIA has opened a new 160,000 square foot lab facility on the company’s new “Innovation Park Campus,” the company announced this week, and the company is hiring for 100 open positions based in Durham.
The facility, which will be known as “Q² Solutions Innovation Laboratories” and operated by IQVIA subsidiary company Q2 Solutions, could house as many as 750 new jobs within the next decade, the company said this week in a statement.
The investment in the facility is a part of the agreement the company struck with the North Carolina Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to WRAL TechWire today.
The new facility was a part of the company’s planned investment that was announced in 2019, which WRAL TechWire reported at the time would be an investment of about $73 million and involved a job target of at least 749 jobs in a seven-year period.
Q2 Solutions plans $73M precision medicine lab, adding 750 jobs in Durham
A Durham County record indicates that the facility is located at the Parmer Ellis campus on Ellis Road near T.W. Alexander Drive in Research Triangle Park, and that the County allocated $950,000 as an economic development incentive to the company following a public hearing on Monday, December 9, 2019. WRAL TechWire reported that a lease in Parmer Ellis was signed by Q2 Solutions in the first quarter of 2021.
The company confirmed the address of the facility in a statement to WRAL TechWire, noting the facility consists of “one building known as Q² Solutions Innovation Laboratories at IQVIA Innovation Park,” adding that the facility is “a four story building with roughly 163k SqFt dedicated to laboratories” and noting the address of 2400 Ellis Rd, Durham, NC.
Inside the Q squared Solutions facility. Image credit: Q squared Solutions.
The Durham County document indicates a planned investment by the company of some $84.2 million, which includes “$51.2 million in upfit of the existing space through 2020 and $33.085 million in business personal property through 2026,” according to a briefing sheet on file with Durham County.
The spokesperson for the company told WRAL TechWire on Friday that the project investment was expected to be about $74 million.
The facility includes bioanalytical, vaccine, biomarker and genomics labs, according to IQVIA. The site also is home to a new Translational Science and Innovation Laboratory (TSAIL) that will make available a suite of services designed to accelerate drug development.
“The new Innovation Laboratories will provide a state-of-the-art solution to the industry, with multiple laboratory disciplines under one roof for biomarker development and delivery,” said Richard Staub, IQVIA’s president of R&D Solutions, in the statement. “The growing need for advanced laboratory capabilities spanning biomarker discovery through next generation vaccine, genomic, and bioanalytical sciences requires the laboratory industry to adapt. Our Innovation Laboratories are designed to fast track the drug development process and provide the agility and range of laboratory sciences under one roof that the industry requires.”
Image of a Durham County document “Briefing Sheet: Q2 Solutions”. Online: https://www.dco-ed.com/home/showpublisheddocument/30402/637181343056230000.
The briefing sheet on file with Durham County indicates that the company planned to hire 164 employees in 2021, and that all envisioned jobs would meet the Durham County Living Wage target. About 200 jobs would not require an advanced degree, the document indicates.
“Still on track to the announcement of an estimated 750 jobs under an incentive agreement in November 2019,” the company spokesperson told WRAL TechWire. “We are on track with the original plans despite the increase in talent demand related to the pandemic.”
The company announced in its statement this week it is recruiting for roles on its careers webpage, which also lists 100 open positions at Q2 Solutions that are based in Durham. According to a company spokesperson, it is currently recruiting for “all levels of experience in scientific and laboratory skills, it and software development, project management, finance, and laboratory operations.”
The jobs were envisioned to provide wages of up to $90,000, when the deal was announced in 2019. The incentive deal that the company received was facilitated in part by two Job Development Investment Grants (JDIGs) approved by the State of North Carolina Economic Investment Committee in November 2019.
“These are well paying, jobs within the health technology sector that are within normative ranges for this market,” said the company’s spokesperson.
WRAL TechWire reported in a prior story that the “first JDIG agreement, which supports the first phase of the project, authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $4,293,750, spread over 12 years. The JDIG supporting the second phase of the project is expected to go into effect in 2023 and authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $5,301,000, also paid over 12 years.”
That is consistent with what was announced at the time by the Office of the Governor of North Carolina.
Inside the Q squared Solutions facility. Image credit: Q squared Solutions.
Q2 Solutions was a joint venture of IQVIA and Quest Diagnostics founded in 2015. IQVIA bought the 40% of the venture that was owned by Quest Diagnostics in April 2021 in a deal worth $760 million, which IQVIA said it paid with “cash on hand.”
The company is “a fully owned subsidiary of IQVIA and provide a range of central laboratory and specialty scientific services for the clinical trials industry,” according to a spokesperson.
The purpose of buying that stake of the company, and taking full ownership, would be to add to its earnings and its revenues, WRAL TechWire reported in April.
IQVIA changed its name in 2017 from QuintilesIMS, which the company became in 2016 following the merger of North Carolina-based Quintiles, founded by Dennis Gillings in 1982, and IMS Health. The company employs about 88,000 people globally.
Life science giant Iqvia acquires rest of Q2 Solutions joint venture for $760M
