Masters Pharmaceuticals wants its employees to work in a "Google-type atmosphere." So the drug distributor, with a little help from government incentives, will build a $16 million warehouse, distribution center and headquarters in Mason, OH, outside of Cincinnati.
The 300,000-square-foot complex will be on a 47-acre site. "It will have ponds and walking trails and a fitness center and a bistro," CEO Denny Smith told the Cincinnati Business Courier. He said the building will be expandable to 550,000 square feet and expects the company to eventually need that space.
The company is moving about 225 people to the new facility from nearby locations and has pledged to add 100 people by 2020. Smith said he thinks the privately held company, which expects about $220 million in sales this year, will need to add more than that. The company will keep a warehouse and distribution center in nearby Fairfield.
In exchange for providing new jobs, the company is expecting about $2 million in various local and state incentives, the Business Courier reports. It says Masters has been one of the fastest growing businesses in the area, rapidly adding clients and more than doubling its revenues from $101.2 million in 2008.
One of those clients got Masters crosswise with the FDA last year when the agency raided its Fairfield warehouse to seize about $12 million worth of drugs it was distributing for Ascend Laboratories, a division of India's Alkem Laboratories. The FDA said Ascend had never gotten approval to market the drugs in the U.S. Smith complained that the FDA's depiction of Masters in its release about the seizure was misleading and that his company would "never knowingly sell unsafe drugs to any customer."
- read the Business Courier story