Medco Health Solutions plans to build the world’s largest and most advanced automated pharmacy in Central Indiana, filling a growing nationwide demand for lower-cost medicines. The new 318,000-square-foot pharmacy, slated to open early in 2009, will cover an area equivalent to six and a half football fields, bringing approximately 1,300 jobs to the state by its anticipated peak operation in 2012.
Medco will invest approximately $150 million to develop a next-generation mail-order facility. The facility will dispense more than one million prescriptions a week at peak operation.
Medco intends to provide competitive salaries and a comprehensive employee benefit package for a wide range of positions, including electrical and mechanical technicians, managers, warehouse specialists and more than 100 pharmacists, among other types of jobs.
The company’s site selection process took a year and covered 48 states. “Central Indiana’s skilled labor force was a key factor” in the site selection process, said Kenneth O. Klepper, Medco president and COO. “Medco has pioneered the use of computers, robotics, optical scanners and other technologies to create drug dispensing systems which are virtually error-free. Technology, however, is only as good as the people who manage it.”
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered Medco up to $18.25 million in performance-based tax credits and up to $450,000 in training grants based on the company's job creation plans.
The state’s business-friendly environment, centralized location, modern transportation infrastructure, and proximity to several schools of pharmacy including ButlerUniversity and PurdueUniversity were other notable factors in the site selection process.