Industry News

More than doubling its West Coast capacity, Cardinal Health will expand its San Diego sterile manufacturing facility by 70,000 sf. The expansion will enable Cardinal to increase its production of freeze-dried pharmaceuticals and liquid products. The project, which will provide space for an additional 125 employees, will begin later in 2003. Cardinal, based in Dublin, is a global provider of goods and services to the health care industry.

The University of Pittsburgh is creating the John A. Swanson Center for Micro and Nano Systems with a gift of $1.4-million from the center's namesake. The center will be housed in the recently established four-laboratory John A. Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence, which will work in collaboration with the new center. The Center for Micro and Nano Systems will focus on applied research, giving companies and researchers access to technology, equipment and services for design, modeling and simulation, fabrication and systems integration.

EMD Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. subsidiary of Darmstadt, Germany-based Merck KGaA, will construct a $300-million biomanufacturing plant in Jena, Germany. The 200,000-sf facility will manufacture cancer drugs.

FlightSafety Boeing Training International will construct a $60-million aviation training center in Atlanta. The 52,000-sf facility is expected to begin operations in January 2004 and will house six full-flight simulators and associated training activities. Employing 50 full-time workers, the center will train up to 7,000 pilots annually. FlightSafety Boeing is soon to be renamed Alteon.

Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta dedicated its new $32-million Cancer Center of Excellence on March 3, 2003. Built using $28.4-million in tobacco lawsuit settlement funds and a $3.3-million gift from the Avon Foundation, the center is the first to open as part of the Georgia Coalition's plan to build a statewide network of accessible cancer care facilities.