Published: June 24, 2009 10:38 am      

Medco to expand

Medco Health Solutions will expand its AllPoints at Anson facility, investing another $17.5 million in and adding 162 jobs to the mail-order pharmacy.

A Therapeutic Resource Center, due to open in October, will specialize in treating oncology patients, the company said in a press release Tuesday, June 23. Whitestown’s TRC is the first of several Medco plans to open throughout the country.

The TRC’s specialty pharmacists will work with physicians to customize treatment for more than one million Medco members with cancer, said Kenneth O. Klepper, Medco’s president and CEO.

Jason Tribby, Whitestown Town Council president, said Medco’s decision was a “strong vote of confidence for central Indiana.” He was “thrilled” by the expansion and the additional job opportunities, Tribby said in a press release.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said the expansion, which will “add tens of millions more dollars” to Indiana’s economy, is “fabulous news.”

Indiana ranked second nationally in an Indiana Business Research Center study of pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs, and third overall in productivity per worker.

A typical life science job paid an average salary of $82,000 as of 2007, the IBRC study found.

Medco is building a 452,000 square feet automated pharmacy at AllPoints.

When it reaches peak capacity in 2012, Medco will employ more than 1,400 researchers, pharmacy technicians, engineering technologists and others at the Whitestown facility.