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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Q2 Solutions Plans $73 Million Medicine Facility in Durham, North Carolina

11/27/2019
Q2 Solutions, a Morrisville clinical trial laboratory services provider, plans a new $73 million precision medicine facility in Durham, North Carolina. The project is expected to to create 749 jobs over seven years.

Q2 (commonly referred to as Q Squared), was created in 2015 as a joint venture of IQVIA (formerly Quintiles) and Secaucus, New Jersey-based Quest Diagnostics.

Governor Roy Cooper, at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in Research Triangle Park, said that the new Q2 project, to be known as the Q2 Solutions Genomics Center of Excellence, will grow in two phases over seven years.

The facility will be developed to transform innovative genomics testing and data into actionable medical insights that improve human health.

The North Carolina Department of Commerce led the state’s support for the company during its site evaluation and decision-making process, with technical support from NCBiotech and partnering from several other organizations.

Brian O'Dwyer, Q2 CEO, said the exact location of the new facility is still in negotiations, and an announcement will be made soon on final details.

Richard Staub III, IQVIA President of R&D Solutions, said the people working at the Q2 site on Miami Boulevard in Morrisville will transition to the new Durham County facility over the next several years, and the company will no longer occupy the Morrisville facility.

Wendy Jacobs, chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, said the company has committed to employing Durham area residents with a range of educational backgrounds, and most of the 749 new jobs will not require advanced degrees. Many will be trained at Durham Technical Community College, she said, and the company has also expressed a willingness to hire "people with previous justice involvements."

The new Durham expansion will be facilitated, in part, by two Job Development Investment Grants (JDIGs) approved by the state’s Economic Investment Committee earlier today. Over the 12-year terms of both grants, the project is projected to add more than $1 billion to North Carolina’s economy.

Using a formula that takes into account the new tax revenues generated by the new jobs, the first JDIG agreement, which supports the first phase of the project, authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $4,293,750, spread over 12 years. The JDIG supporting the second phase of the project is expected to go into effect in 2023 and authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $5,301,000, also paid over 12 years.

State payments only occur following performance verification by the departments of Commerce and Revenue that the company has met its incremental job creation and investment targets. JDIG projects result in positive net tax revenue to the state treasury, even after taking into consideration the grant’s reimbursement payments to a given company.

The JDIG agreements also call for moving nearly $3.2 million into the state’s Industrial Development Fund – Utility Account. The Utility Account helps rural communities finance necessary infrastructure upgrades to attract future business.

Partnering with the state’s Department of Commerce, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina and the Biotechnology Center on this project were the North Carolina General Assembly, the North Carolina Community College System, Durham County, and the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce.

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