GOVERNOR TOURS ROCHE
- Company committed to R&D in New Jersey

FROM THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

August 18, 2008

Contact: Robert Corrales
609-777-2600


NUTLEY – Governor Jon S. Corzine today met with Hoffman-LaRoche Inc. CEO George Abercrombie and toured the 127-acre corporate campus to review the company’s construction plans. Roche will be expanding its research and development operations in the Garden State.

  “New Jersey and Roche have a fruitful 80-year partnership that will continue to flourish,” said Governor Corzine.  “We should be proud that this global pharmaceutical leader has reaffirmed its commitment by strengthening its R&D operations here in Nutley, which ultimately will provide good, high-paying jobs for our citizens.”

  Roche, a company at the forefront of treating some of the most difficult and debilitating diseases for decades, invests more than $7.0 billion a year worldwide in pharmaceutical research and development.

“Roche’s commitment to New Jersey has been long and successful and our commitment will continue,” Abercrombie said. “Our decision to move Roche’s commercial operations to California was a strategic business decision and not about the business climate in New Jersey. The Roche-Nutley campus remains a very important hub for the company and will focus on discovering and developing medicines for cancer, metabolic and inflammatory diseases.”  “Reports of the state’s pharma industry withering on the vine couldn’t be further from the truth,” Governor Corzine said. “New Jersey remains the ‘Medicine Chest of the World’ with 15 of the world’s top 25 pharmaceutical companies either having their U.S. or world headquarters, or major operations, in New Jersey and that includes Roche.”

  Earlier today, The Health Care Institute of New Jersey released a study that indicates despite the recent national economic downturn, the economic impact of the pharmaceutical industry on New Jersey increased to $27 billion in 2007, up from $26 billion a year earlier. The study also shows that New Jersey employment by medical and life-sciences companies was 61,000 for 2007, a similar range experienced in 2005 and 2006  

In terms of biotechnology companies, a recent Ernst and Young report for BIO-NJ indicates that the number of companies in the state increased to 238 from 226 in 2006. Additionally research and development expenditures at public companies were $1.2 billion in 2007, up from $737 million in 2005.  

Both big pharma and biotech companies recognize the immensely symbiotic relationship of being near each other, and being in the state with the most highly qualified and educated workforce.

  According to the Knowledge Economy Index, New Jersey is ranked as the fourth most competitive state in the nation. New Jersey also ranks seventh in the number of PhDs and engineers per 1,000 workers.  According to Business Facilities magazine, the State ranks No.1 in biotech ‘breadth’ and No. 2 in biotech ‘depth.’  

Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (Roche), based in Nutley, N.J., is the U.S. pharmaceuticals headquarters of the Roche Group, one of the world’s leading research-oriented healthcare groups with core businesses in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. For more than 100 years in the U.S., Roche has been committed to developing innovative products and services that address prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, thus enhancing people's health and quality of life.