The promised announcement of a major new industry for the former Pfizer property in southern Vigo County turned out to be well worth the wait. When the news came Tuesday that NantWorks — a company founded and backed by a greatly successful billionaire innovator — had settled on our county as the home of its new plant, there was reason for celebration and congratulation throughout the county, bistate and region.
After federal Food and Drug Administration approvals are secured and plant start-up operations are complete, the company projects that by 2016 it will have attracted to our community 234 jobs, paying an average of $51,000 with some management jobs ranging into six figures. All told, the jobs are foreseen producing a $12 million annual payroll at that point. These are high-quality jobs that carry the promise of bringing to our midst highly educated and highly skilled managers, scientists and medical technicians, supported by a skilled and motivated hourly workforce. These will not be high-turnover jobs, and NantWorks offers the promise of a stable workforce, for, we hope, decades.
To read NantWorks founder Patrick Soon-Shiong’s bona fides is to gain confidence in his ability to deliver on his visions for the new company. His is an inspiring record of quick achievement, not the least of which was his earning a medical degree at age 23 (when many students are finishing their bachelor’s degrees). And while some with anti-pharmaceuticals biases may find his financial successes proof of a problem in modern medicine, we instead see activities and innovations designed to meet serious public health needs, such as the breast cancer drug Abraxane he developed. And Soon-Shiong’s company here will advance injectable cancer drugs for patients with critical needs. We have little problem with big financial paybacks from drug developments that make big differences in patients’ lives — especially when that involves the scourge of cancer.
NantWorks, with its 234 jobs to begin, cannot, of course, fully replace the Pfizer jobs that were lost when the plant here closed. But neither can Vigo County’s newest industrial citizen be expected to do so. Times have changed such that technology has replaced the large workforces America was used to in the second half of the last century. Also, the effects of a recovering but still shaky economy control the economy of scale that limits the size of workforces.
But workforce size isn’t everything. NantWorks can also have effects beyond its number of employees. Already, we understand, inquiries are being made from support businesses — pest control, equipment providers, financial institutions, security companies. These are the spin-off effects, the secondary and tertiary benefits that come when a major new employer comes to a community.
NantWorks also has the potential — which its predecessor, Pfizer, realized well over many years — for community service within the region. Many were the Pfizer employees who served on community boards and as community opinion leaders on matters such as education, charity, workforce development and business attraction. We commend that level of community involvement to NantWorks’ emulation.
We also commend the local, regional and state economic development efforts that secured NantWorks. The monetary incentives — tax credits, training funds, $1 sale of property, a water line extension — offered by the state and county seem reasonable, given the potential payoff of having NantWorks develop its business here. In addition to payoffs, adequate paybacks also seem to have been built in to the agreement. If NantWorks fails to employ 234 by the end of 2016, it must pay back to the Vigo County Redevelopment Commission more than $5,000 for each employee under that number. And if it fails to develop the plant at all, it must pay the commission $1.2 million.
It has been a long time coming and it will take a few more years to realize the benefits, but having attracted and secured NantWorks to Vigo County is a great way to start a new year — and a new era — in the Wabash Valley.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: A new era for growth
Industrial announcement starts year with a bang
- Editorials
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EDITORIAL: Matt Branam: 1954-2012
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EDITORIAL: A transplant from St. Ann’s
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TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: A salute to pride of ’55
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EDITORIAL: A match of Mitt and Mitch?
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EDITORIAL: Drilling for fairness
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
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