Biotech firm BioAgilytix to add 878 jobs in Durham after landing $18.9M incentives

BioAgilytix, a Durham-based firm that does clinical research on experimental drugs, plans to add 878 jobs in Durham County after landing a large incentive package from North Carolina on Thursday.

The jobs will be added between 2023 and 2027 and will pay a minimum average of $96,500, the N.C. Commerce Department announced Thursday.

Founded in Durham in 2008, BioAgilytix has been growing rapidly in recent years and had maxed out its capacity at its three laboratories in Durham, Massachusetts and Germany, company CEO Jim Datin said while announcing the expansion at the N.C. Biotechnology Center.

The company is currently working on more than 800 different projects, including dozens on treatments for COVID-19. The company has a particular focus on biologic drugs.

“We have less than 10% of market share, and yet we were involved in 30% of all biologics approved by the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” Datin said.

That growth sent the company on a search for more space. BioAgilytix was seriously considering placing these jobs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it had recently acquired a competitor.

Without incentives, Datin said, the company likely would have gone there. BioAgilytix will receive an $18.9 million incentives package from the state if it meets its employment targets. Durham County will chip in around $500,000.

The company will invest $61 million in expanding its current facilities. The company already has 350 employees in North Carolina.

In the competition to land biotechnology firms, the Triangle is increasingly going head to head with the Boston area, which has a large cluster of life science companies.

“Boston, you have around 800 different biotech (companies). You have a lot of big pharma there. A lot of research is centered there,” Datin said. “In the Triangle, we have about 100 biotechs and growing.”

While cost of living is high in the Boston area, the concentration of companies there makes it very attractive.

But Datin believes North Carolina has a chance to grow to a similar scale, with the building blocks of talent, infrastructure and better weather than most places.

“I think (the Triangle) is one of the best-kept secrets,” he said. “We have been very successful recruiting people here from Boston and California. They want to be able to raise a family here and they want to own a house.”

He noted that they recently had an employee move to the Triangle from California, where the employee sold a 1,200-square-foot condo for around $500,000. “You can imagine what they were able to buy with that here,” he said.

Commerce Secretary Tony Copeland said he believes North Carolina has narrowed the gap significantly with Cambridge, the suburb of Boston that is home to many biotech companies.

“I think workforce is on par with the Boston metropolitan area,” he said. “Boston is perhaps perceived as more interconnected globally; I think that perception is wrong. ... It is just a matter of public perception catching up with the facts.”

Since 2017, Durham County has added more than 4,000 jobs via recruitment efforts led by the state’s Commerce Department, many of them biotech companies, like AveXis or Beam Therapeutics.

Copeland said the success of Durham has a lot to do with history. The county has benefited from the state’s investment in Research Triangle Park more than 50 years ago. North Carolina was the second poorest state in the country in 1950, Copeland said, “In 2020, we have an economy larger than Sweden.”

“This doesn’t just happen because of me or one other person,” Copeland said, “But it’s about having the infrastructure, the existing jobs and the talent.”

“No company is going anywhere without talent,” he added, “and Durham, the Triangle and North Carolina broadly has done that.”

BioAgilytix said it plans to work very closely with Durham Technical Community College and the surrounding universities. It said it plans to create internship programs with North Carolina Central University and Durham Tech.

J.B. Buxton, who took over as president of Durham Tech this year, said creating a pipeline of local talent is key when it comes to creating a more equitable community.

“People can move into these jobs and have real upward economic mobility,” he said.

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate

This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 11:18 AM with the headline "Biotech firm BioAgilytix to add 878 jobs in Durham after landing $18.9M incentives."