Essen Instruments expands into research, plans to hire 40

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | Source: Concentrate

It would have been easy for Ann Arbor-based Essen Instruments to skip town. Many of its customers are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area. And there’s more venture capital there that could help the promising start-up grow.

"There were a lot of things that were pulling us toward California," says Brad Naegle, a spokesman for Essen Instruments.

The 10-year-old firm decided to stick to its roots and expand in Michigan while taking advantage of a $490,940 tax credit over seven years from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. That will allow the life sciences company to invest $3 million in Ann Arbor while creating 43 new jobs over five years.

Essen Instruments builds, sells and services pre-clinical cell-based research tools, the type of products used by pharmaceutical companies for research. The company has noticed that a lot of these firms are now outsourcing a large portion of their lab work, prompting Essen Instruments to create the Discovery Services Business Unit Development Project.

"We had to develop a business unit to take advantage of that," Naegle says.

This new division of the company, which already employs 25 people on the city’s south side, will employ scientists, technicians and instrument operators. These workers will conduct drug-discovery research in up to 3,000 square feet of laboratory space in Ann Arbor.

Source: Brad Naegle, a spokesman for Essen Instruments
Writer: Jon Zemke