INC Research Creating 550 New Jobs in HQ Move

INC Research Creating 550 New Jobs in HQ Move December 14, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

RALEIGH, N.C. – INC Research Holdings , a contract research organization, is planning a $37.9 million investment as the company shifts from Raleigh to a new Morrisville, N.C. headquarters. The move to a larger facility will create an additional 550 jobs over the next several years, the company said.

“We’re pleased to announce our continued commitment to North Carolina,” INC Research Chief Executive Officer Alistair Macdonald said in a statement. “The talent base we've been able to attract in our Raleigh and Wilmington offices and across the state in recent years has been phenomenal. We look forward to continued strong growth here and across the globe and couldn’t think of a more suitable location to accommodate our growing employee base.”

The move to the new location is expected to occur in the middle of 2018, although a hard target has yet to be announced. INC Research has been based in Raleigh since 2000. The company specializes in Phase I to Phase IV clinical trials.

Since the announcement of the expansion, shares of INC Research have been on the rise. This morning the stock is trading at $51.30 per share.

The news was announced Tuesday by the office of Gov. Pat McCrory as part of the expansion will be assisted with a Job Development Investment Grant approved by the state’s Economic Investment Committee. Under the terms of the grant, INC Research is eligible to receive up to $8.4 million in total reimbursements. Payments will occur in annual installments over eight years pending verification by N.C. Commerce and N.C. Revenue that the company has met incremental job creation and investment targets. Additionally, the company is eligible for grants from the town of Morrisville, but that has yet to be approved, the Raleigh-based News and Observer reported.

Average salaries for the new positions created by the company are expected to be about $74,923—well above the average wage of $52,315 for Wake County, where the company is based.

INC Research employs more than 6,700 people globally, with about 1,400 based in North Carolina. It was not clear if the additional employees would be based at the Morrisville site, or if they would be located at another one of the company’s facilities in the state. The Triangle Business Journal reported the company maintains about 1,000 people at its headquarters and the remaining 400 are at other N.C. locations.

North Carolina is home to a number of contract research organizations, including Chapel Hill-based Rho, Quintiles and PRA Health Sciences. Commerce Secretary John Skvarla II told the News and Observer that there are about 63,000 CRO employees in the state.

INC Research has seen steady growth in recent years. Last year, company growth strategies led to the hiring of more than 500 globally. The company has seen about a 10 percent annual growth rate, the News and Observer said.

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