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Published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on Wednesday, August 9. All rights

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Life in the Fast Lane: Merial Leaving

Merial is leaving the state and taking 300 jobs to

Georgia. Merial’s other option would have been to uproot 560 workers

and a passel of chickens and turkeys in a move from Georgia to New

Jersey. The turkeys won, so a prime tenant is leaving the New Jersey

Technology Center in North Brunswick.

Fifty-five Merial workers will leave 60,000 square feet at the New

Jersey Technology Center on Route 1 South by the second quarter of

2002 and move into a building now under construction in Atlanta.

Merial

will, nevertheless, pay on the remaining six years of its 10-year

lease with the Tech Center’s owner, the New Jersey Economic

Development

Authority (EDA), says spokesperson Janice Keene.

"We alerted the New Jersey Economic Development Authority a number

of weeks ago," says Keene. "The state had put together a

proposal

and we appreciate their efforts in that regard, and we will certainly

honor the lease and will continue to work with them."

Merial will also move 250 people from Iselin, and this exodus is just

the sort of move that the EDA was trying to prevent in 1998 when it

leased the space at the Technology Center, part of a 50-acre research

park on Route 1 South in North Brunswick, practically adjacent to

Rutgers’ Cook Campus (www.njeda.com).

At these labs Merial focused on new and existing products for

companion

animals (such as dogs, cats, and horses) as well as for livestock

(such as swine and cattle). Merial is the result of Merck and

Rhone-Poulenc

combining their animal-health businesses in 1998. It is the world’s

largest animal-health company solely dedicated to the discovery,

manufacture,

marketing, and delivery of veterinary pharmaceuticals and vaccines,

and it also leads the market in developing and producing poultry

breeding

stock (www.merial.com).

Merial has 560 people in Gainesville and Athens,

Georgia.

"Merial was formed through a merger just about three years ago.

Until this time we were operating out of nine locations in the U.S.,

two in Georgia, two in New Jersey, one in St. Louis, and small farms

in Missouri, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and North Carolina,"

says Keene. "We were focusing all of our energies on making the

merger successful, but now for us to be competitive we need to

consolidate

all our locations in closer proximity. We are also in the midst of

going through a global reorganization." Even 110 workers from

St. Louis are going to Georgia.

When Merial offered to base its North American headquarters —

as well as part of its global operations — at the first new

building

at the Tech Center, the EDA jumped at the offer, saying that the Tech

Center’s vision has always been to provide a place for major companies

to expand, to be a home for growing businesses, and to foster synergy

between high tech companies and the state’s universities.

Assorted small firms had expressed interest in taking footage

equivalent

to half the first new building. Had the small companies leased this

space, EDA would have helped with the build out. Merial received no

such help and paid $12 to $15 million for its own buildout, according

to one source. "Once we signed the lease, we leased the core and

shell and the surrounding property," says Keene.

Where this exodus leaves the New Jersey Tech Center: the EDA has built

and leased a second 60,000 building and is preparing to break ground

on an 80,000 square foot third building this year. Funds for

one-fourth

of that space have been designated for a "commercialization

center"

that will offer up to 6,000 feet, suitable for companies that may

have grown out of an incubator, but are still too small for the usual

space.