20 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • APRIL 2019
PRESS BUSINESS
ARE DRUG COMPANIES THE CURE FOR WHAT AILS LI’S ECONOMY?
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“Yes, these types of companies are
growing,” says John Lombardo, associate
vice president of workforce
and economic development at Suffolk
County Community College, who has
monitored LI’s economy for more
than two decades. “They do employ
a lot of people because some of these
companies run three shifts a day.
Some of these companies have two
locations on Long Island and some
have more than five or six.”
Suffolk County Executive Steve
Bellone says that pharma has been a
quiet economic engine.
“As a driving force in our region's
innovation economy, the pharmaceutical
industry is responsible for the
creation of thousands of high-quality,
high-paying jobs for Suffolk County
residents,” he says. “For more than
five decades, it has silently woven
itself into the fabric of our business
community. My administration is
proud to play its part in supporting
the network of companies that lead
and support the industry's expansion
and we will continue to explore new
pathways with our economic development
partners to keep it moving
forward.”
New York State employment data
supports the idea that the pharma
industry is growing on the Island. In
2018, the industry employed about
13,007 people in Nassau and Suffolk
counties, up from about 10,000 a decade
ago. State figures say the industry
tends to be high paying, having
spent about $293 million in wages in
2018, up from about $500,000 in 2003.
The industry employees a number
of scientists and researchers, whose
salaries are in the six-to-seven-figure
range.
There are about 25 companies in the
industry, the majority of them in Suffolk,
where land prices are cheaper.
Shatel Patel, Long Island regional
economist for the state labor department
in Hicksville, characterizes
employment growth in the pharma
industry here as “moderate,” but says
the industry is “one of the drivers
of manufacturing overall on Long
Island.”
Like the tech industry, drug makers are having difficulty finding talent on LI. (Getty Images)
“The pharmaceutical and the food
and beverage industries have been
increasing manufacturing on Long
Island,” Patel says.
The largest of the companies on the
Island is Amneal Pharmaceuticals, a
nearly $2 billion corporation headquartered
in New Jersey that employs about
1,100 in Suffolk, according to a company
spokesman. In February, Amneal said
it is planning another expansion of
its huge office and factory in South
Yaphank, adding that the move will
create about 400 new jobs in the next
year or so. Amneal is the fifth-largest
U.S. manufacturer of generic drugs.
Less-well-known companies in the industry
are also growing. Mark Wolf,
president of Contract Pharmacal
Corp, says that the company operates
out of 11 buildings in the Hauppauge
Industrial Park. The company, founded
in 1971 in a former gasoline station
in Danbury, Conn., moved to LI in
1975 and has about 1,000 employees.
The privately held company does several
hundred million in sales a year.
“We’ve had tremendous growth in
the last three years,” says Wolf, son
of the founders, his parents, John and
Harriet Wolf. The company recently
added hemp, a dietary supplement, to
its core products of over-the-counter
drugs.
ScieGen Pharmaceuticals in Hauppauge
is only eight years old but
already has 300 employees and is
planning to add a new building,
which will mean adding another 200
to 300 workers, says Siva Reddy, the
company’s vice president of formulation.
The company works on drugs
to treat hypertension and other prescription
drugs.
“Business has been good,” Reddy says.
Suffolk and the Towns of Islip and
Brookhaven have been particularly
active in providing pharma companies
with tax breaks and other incentives,
to make sure they remain here
and to help them grow.
Some recent examples:
Amneal received a $600,000 rebate
check from the local utility tied to
a $150 million energy efficient project
it recently completed in South
Yaphank. Amneal is also eligible for
up to $3 million from New York State
for the energy-efficiency project.
A&Z Pharmaceutical Inc., a manufacturer
of dietary supplements,
was granted $742,500 in tax breaks
and a 55 percent reduction in property
taxes over 10 years, by Suffolk’s
Industrial Development Agency.
Evaric Pharmaceuticals in Hauppauge,
a generic drug maker, is working
with the Suffolk IDA, which has
voted to approve tax breaks to assist
with development plans.
But the industry is not without its
problems. With unemployment
low on the Island, finding and retaining
scientist and technicians
is difficult, says Wolf, of Contract
Pharmacal.
“We take from one another,” Wolf
says.
Others in the industry, who asked
to remain anonymous, are not as
diplomatic.
“We steal from one another,” one
says. The competition for top-flight
scientists and engineers is intense,
and can impact the bottom line.
Food and Drug Administration
regulations can be arduous and
expensive for companies to comply
with. And the industry is
intensely competitive, so much so
that companies are even naming
the OTC brands they supply. Even
such small knowledge might provide
a competitor with valuable
information.
Will all this be the prescription for
what ails LI’s economy? As they say,
results may vary.
“We’ve had tremendous growth in the
last three years,” says Mark Wolf, president of
Hauppauge-based Contract Pharmacal.
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