Edited by Scott Morgan
New Solar Array
Janssen Pharmaceutica (JJ), 1125 Trenton-Harbourton Road, Titusville 08560; 609-730-2000. Denice Torres, president. www.us.janssen.com.
Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, is installing 13,500 solar panels at its Titusville facility that are expected to produce four megawatts of energy, enough to power 70 percent of the site’s operations.
Expected to be completed by the end of this year, the set-up will be the largest of its kind in New Jersey and the largest at any Johnson & Johnson facility in the world.
#b#New in Town#/b#
Rik Technologies Inc., 4365 Route 1 South, Suite 105, Monmouth Junction 08852; 732-422-9200; fax, 732-909-2746. Andy Iyengar, COO. www.riktech.com.
Rik Technologies, a provider of IT and professional staffing services, has moved into a new office in Monmouth Junction. The company, founded in 1996, previously operated in Manalapan.
E-Aspire IT, 4390 Route 1 North, Suite 218, Princeton 08540; 609-297-8620; fax, 860-795-8634. www.e-aspireit.com.
E-Aspire IT, an information technology and placement firm, has opened an office on Route 1. The firm offers training, staffing, and IT management for businesses.
M.J. Sagan Architect, 195 Nassau Street, Third Floor, Princeton 08542-7004; 609-683-4950; fax, 609-683-4951. M.J. Sagan, president. www.mjsaganarchitecture.com.
Architect M.J. Sagan has opened her own firm at 195 Nassau Street. The 1982 Penn State graduate is a former vice president of Anderson Architects in New York City, the firm that designed the corporate headquarters of clothier Abercrombie & Fitch in Columbus, Ohio.
She began her career as a staff designer at George F. Henschel in Bedford, New York, and an associate at Becker, Becker & Lamont in New Canaan, Connecticut.
#b#Management Moves#/b#
Mercadien PC, CPAs, 3625 Quakerbridge Road, Box 7648, Princeton 08543-7648; 609-689-9700. Conrad Druker, CPA, managing director. www.mercadien.com.
Accountant Gary Rosen has been named a managing director at Quakerbridge Road-based accounting and financial consulting firm Mercadien.
The firm has 11 partners, each of whom serve as managing director.
Rosen, who earned his bachelor’s in accounting from Rutgers, is a specialist in fraud and financial forensics, business valuations, bankruptcy, contractual disputes, and investigative accounting.
#b#Grant Awarded#/b#
Aestus Therapeutics Inc., 675 Route 1, Technology Center of NJ, North Brunswick 08902; 732-249-0690; fax, 732-875-0684. Tage Honore, CEO. www.aestustherapeutics.com.
Aestus Therapeutics, a developer of treatments for chronic neuropathic pain, has received a $2 million Small Business Innovative Research grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund clinical trials in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia. PHN is the persistent pain following an outbreak of shingles.
According to the NIH, more than a million new cases of shingles are reported each year in the United States, many of which will lead to PHN. Currently there is no effective treatment. Neuropathic pain is also a common complication of cancer, diabetes, viral infections, and other diseases.
#b#Expansions#/b#
Covance Inc. (CVD), 210 Carnegie Center, Princeton 08540-6681; 609-452-8550; fax, 609-452-9375. Joe Herring, CEO. www.covance.com.
Pharma giant Covance, headquartered at 210 Carnegie Center, has opened a 20,000-square-foot, $5 million biotech facility in Greenfield, Indiana, for long-term storage of DNA, blood, and other materials used for clinical trials.
The company expects to hire 300 new employees there.
#b#Finances Raised#/b#
Agile Therapeutics Inc., 366 Wall Street, Princeton 08540; 609-683-1880. Thomas M. Rossi, president. www.agiletherapeutics.com.
Less than a month after Agile Therapeutics raised $1.46 million from investors in a mixed-securities offering, the maker of transdermal drugs has raised $45 million, the full amount it sought to raise from a targeted offering.
Founded in 1997, Agile Therapeutics develops women’s healthcare products, including a contraceptive patch.
#b#Crosstown Moves#/b#
Kaufman Zita Group LLC, 5 Vaughn Drive, Suite 101, Princeton 08540; 609-452-9800; fax, 609-452-9801. Adam Kaufman, president. www.kaufmanzitagroup.com.
Kaufman Zita Group, a lobbying and public affairs firm, has moved from 12 Roszel Road to Vaughn Drive, beside Princeton Junction train station. The firm has been replaced on Roszel Road by Frontline Technologies, an IT services company.
Trish Zita and Adam Kaufman, who were partners in the Capital Public Affairs lobbying firm that Kaufman founded in the 1990s, started their own firm in 2007. The firm has been involved in everything from helping certified trainers expand their employment opportunities to giving Verizon’s FIOS service easy entry into New Jersey homes.
Both Kaufman and Zita got turned on to politics when they were young. Kaufman has been active in local politics and campaigns since he was a kid. His father was a packaging engineer at Church & Dwight, and his mother a commercial artist with a specialty in gold-leaf illuminated manuscripts. He has served as a legislative aide for two different Middlesex County legislators for more than 20 years.
Kaufman grew up in North Brunswick and graduated from Rutgers in 1979 with a degree in political science. He wrote freelance articles for the New Jersey Reporter and worked for former Princeton Borough mayor Barbara Sigmund when she ran for the United States Senate in 1982.
Zita, a Hamilton native who calls herself “the only five-year-old whose favorite program was the six o’clock news with Walter Cronkite,” is a first-generation American. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Italy; her father is a cabinetmaker and her mother is a tailor. She holds a bachelor’s in political science from Syracuse, Class of 1990.
As a contract lobbying firm, the Kaufman Zita Group represents a diverse group of associations, corporations, and individual entities. “We are not a one-issue-based lobbying firm,” says Zita, adding that most of the firm’s clients are in the healthcare and energy sectors.
Its latest venture is the launch of Capitol Insights, a monthly survey concerning government and politics in New Jersey.
CMC Energy Services, 1249 South River Road, Suite 104, Cranbury 08512; 609-235-9752. Denise Stein, operations manager. www.cmcenergy.com.
CMC , which does energy audits of residences and small commercial establishments, has moved from Plainsboro Road to South River Road in Cranbury. The firm is headquartered in Maryland.
Langan Engineering, 989 Lenox Drive, Suite 305, Lawrenceville 08648; 609-282-8000; fax, 609-282-8001. Nicholas De Rose, partner in charge. www.langan.com.
Langan Engineering, a civil and environmental engineering firm based in Elmwood Park, has moved its Mercer County office from Trenton to Lenox Drive.
#b#Leaving Town#/b#
BIA Advisory Services, 613 Executive Drive, Princeton 08540-1528. Tom Buono, CEO. www.bia.com.
BIA, the Virginia-based strategic research and analysis group that bought out the Kelsey Group in 2008, has closed its office in Montgomery Commons and no longer operates in New Jersey.
Founded in 1986 by John and Pam Kelsey, the Kelsey Group provided research, data, and analysis on print and electronic Yellow Pages, local search, and small-business marketing. It was acquired by BIA, a strategic advisory firm with clients in the media and communications industries, largely because the Kelsey Group had become the major player in industry conferences on the new media (U.S. 1, October 8, 2008).
