Vetter Pharma, a Germany-based contract company specializing in aseptic filling and packaging of drugs into syringes, vials and cartridges, broke ground on its U.S. headquarters in Des Plaines, Illinois.

The facility will cost $350 million. It is being built on a 17-acre site at Mount Prospect and Algonquin roads and began with renovations to a five-story office building once owned by the Salvation Army. The building will host Vetter’s management, human resources and legal departments. Completion of the building is expected in February, with staffers moving into it in March.

The entire 1.2 million-square-feet facility is expected to be finished in 2030, which will include production, an automated warehouse, offices and laboratories. About 500 jobs are expected to be created.

Next year, four new buildings will be started, with more than 700,000 square feet of space to be used for production, warehousing and various other operations. Construction of those four buildings is expected to take up to two years. A second phase of construction with two more buildings is expected to wrap by 2025.

The city, state and county provided tax incentives to encourage Vetter to set up its headquarters and facilities there. According to the Daily Herald, "The county approved a recommendation by the city to give Vetter a Cook County Class 6B tax incentive, which will lower property taxes for 12 years. The company will pay property taxes at 10 percent of market value for 10 years, 15 percent in the 11th year and 20 percent in the 12th year. Property is normally assessed at 25 percent."

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity also provided the company a grant.

Business must be good, because the company announced on October 19 that it was expanding its Secondary Packaging Service in Ravensburg, Germany by 32,000 square feet. It will include state-of-the-art packaging lines and assembly equipment. The company’s serialization and aggregation service will also expand.

The company states, "A highly flexible, state-of-the-art syringe blister line will include safety device assembly and equipment for packaging Japan quality. The addition of new state-of-the-art assembly machines for pens and autoinjectors will allow Vetter to meet a majority of the growing market need for these systems."

Bernd Stauss, Vetter’s senior vice president of Production/Engineering, said in a statement, "Often we hear from customers that a high level of expertise in the assembly and packaging of pens, autoinjectors and safety devices is critical for their success. Vetter has this experience and can offer a one-stop solution, from development to filling to secondary packaging, including serialization of products—a service that is greatly appreciated by our customers."

The company also opened an office in South Korea on Nov. 9 to expand the company’s footprint in the Asia-Pacific region. The office is in Songdo, South Korea. The company established a hub in Singapore in 2014, then formed a Japanese subsidiary by opening a Tokyo office in 2015.