Senator announces task force on Roche Carolina sale

State Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence has announced a special task force that will assist Roche Carolina in looking for “the right kind of company” to buy its Florence County facility.

Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche is seeking a buyer with a strategic long-term interest in the Florence site’s development and manufacturing technologies and capabilities, Roche Carolina Community Affairs & Site Services Manager Pete Mazzaroni said in an earlier report. The sale will include all Roche Carolina facilities and infrastructure and the buyer will assume responsibility for the Roche Carolina work force. At this point, however, the company has not begun negotiations with any potential buyers.

The three-member task force announced Tuesday is made up of Florence-Darlington Technical College President Dr. Charles Gould, chairman of the Florence Economic Development Partnership, Francis Marion University President Dr. Fred Carter and Don Herriott, a former Roche Carolina and Roche International executive who remains a Florence resident.

While announcing the task force at the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation Library in Florence before a large audience, Leatherman challenged everyone in attendance to “step up when called.

“When these men (task force members) call you to entertain someone or help out in some other way, don’t hesitate. Step up,” the senator said.

Funding for the group, which could be used initially to hire experts who can advise the task force on possibilities and a strategy, will come mostly from the state. Leatherman, the influential chairman of the senate’s appropriations committee, wrangled a $400,000 contribution from the S.C. Department of Commerce.

Florence County Progress, the private sector arm of the Florence Economic Development Partnership, will contribute $50,000 as will the North Eastern Strategic Alliance, regional economic development team representing nine counties in northeastern South Carolina.

“We want to make sure we get the right kind of company in here,” Leatherman said. “We don’t want some rogue group that will just dismantle it and leave.”

Roche announced a week ago not only the sale of the Florence facility, but also that it will cut 4,800 jobs over two years, mostly in the United States, to help save 2.4 billion Swiss francs ($2.4 billion) by 2012. U.S. locations will be hit hardest by Roche’s “Operational Excellence Program,” with some 3,550 jobs cut or moved elsewhere.

What Roche’s new Operational Excellence Program, or restructuring, will mean for the Florence plant may not be known for months down the road, but the goal is for the next owner to keep it a viable plant well into the future. Officials don’t anticipate any major impact on individual employment at the Florence site until at least mid-2011, Mazzaroni said.

The decision is based on the company’s strategic direction and an over-capacity in the chemical manufacturing network, he said.

Established in Florence County in 1992, the pharmaceutical development and manufacturing facility has remained one of the region’s largest and most prominent employers at its East Old Marion Highway site, past Francis Marion University.

The plant is home to slightly more than 300 employees, a significant number of whom are highly-paid workers with advanced degrees.

“We’re looking at the possibility of a real brain drain,” Florence Mayor Stephen J. Wukela said.

Leatherman said he doesn’t expect that to happen.

“I think we’ll find a company who wants to be here, that wants to be a part of our community for the long haul,” he said. “We’re going to be successful. I’m sure of that.“

The new owner is expected to sustain long-term capacity utilization at the Florence site through its own pipeline and/or by attracting third party business, Mazzaroni said.

In April 2007, the company announced a $60 million investment that involved the construction of a new multi-purpose production unit in an existing manufacturing building. Commercial products manufactured at the site include Xeloda, an oncology drug, and Tamiflu, an anti-viral medication. Both are sold around the world.

Aside from the the manufacturing space, which is large by pharmaceutical standards, the facility features 300- to 2,000-gallon bio-reactors “capable of multi-step organic synthesis,” according to the company website. Another pharmaceutical company, or an investor group, could buy the plant and continue to make drugs, possibly even the very same drugs made there now.

Carter said the plant’s basic structure would be attractive to chemical companies as pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Worried that a buyer harboring get-rich-quick notions might pop up in a hurry, Leatherman and company feverishly organized a series of meetings last week to put the new initiative together.

“We were worried that some rogue company might come in here, sell off the assets and leave us holding the bag,” Leatherman said. “So we worked quickly. Everyone we talked to was very cooperative. Everyone is interested in getting this done.”

Leatherman said Roche officials are “completely on board” with the task force plan.

“While it’s certainly theirs (Roche’s) to sell, I think they’re glad to get any help they can,” Carter said.