Nanotherapeutics opens $138 million plant near Progress Park
ALACHUA - Several speakers invoked lessons learned from the Pearl Harbor bombing 75 years ago to the day as they marked the opening of a manufacturing plant that will make vaccines and drug treatments to protect soldiers from chemical and biological threats.
About 130 people attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday for Nanotherapeutics' new $138 million, 183,000-square-foot plant built near Progress Park in Alachua, including officials from the Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and local government.
The plant was built to fulfill a Department of Defense grant that could be worth up to $359 million.
"The purpose and the capability of this facility is really fundamentally to avoid a surprise and be better prepared," said Chris Hassell, deputy assistant secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense. "Sixty years after Pearl Harbor we were surprised again with the anthrax mailings and other events of 9/11, so this whole issue of surprise is a common area of discussion, what can we do to avoid surprise, to defend it, to respond to it more effectively and to that end this facility is very important to our capability to do that."
Read more: http://www.gainesville.com/news/20161207/nanotherapeutics-opens-138-million-plant-near-progress-park
