Fresenius Medical Care Announces New Manufacturing Facility in Innovation Valley

Kidney dialysis product and service provider Fresenius Medical Care North America is investing in the Marble City. The company is planning to build a factory in Knox County, Tenn., creating 665 area jobs.

The Knox County Industrial Development Board approved a tax incentive to bring Fresenius to the area and pump roughly $140 million into the local economy. The proposed site for the factory is the former Panasonic building at Forks of the River Industrial Park.

The board approved an eight-year tax incentive worth nearly $3.9 million. Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett said the deal is the largest single investment for the city in a decade.

“I am excited to welcome Fresenius Medical Care to Knox County, and am thankful for their considerable investment in our community,” Burchett said. “Not only will their expansion into Forks of the River utilize a now-vacant piece of industrial property, the hundreds of high-tech manufacturing jobs they will bring to Knox County will have significant economic impact on our entire region.”

The process to recruit Fresenius Medical Care to the area began in May 2013, and was a collaborative effort by the Chamber, Knox County Industrial Development Board, the state of Tennessee, Tennessee Valley Authority, and Knoxville Utilities Board. The company plans to begin retrofitting the Panasonic building later this year.

“We are so pleased Fresenius Medical Care has decided establish its East Coast manufacturing operations in Innovation Valley,” said Rhonda Rice, executive vice president of the Knoxville Chamber. “The company’s investment in the region is one of the largest in recent history and will create 660-plus jobs for our workforce.”

Fresenius Medical Care will begin moving one production line to the Knoxville facility in September 2014. Actual production at the facility is not expected to begin until early 2016, pending a designation from the Food and Drug Administration that the facility is a qualified plant for production. Once production reaches full capacity, the operations will bring an estimated $37 million in annual wages into the region.

“In Knoxville, we’ve found a home with an excellent workforce pool, a facility that will work well for our purposes, and a location that will enable us to serve our customers in the eastern half of the U.S. more efficiently,” said Troy McGhee, vice president of manufacturing for Fresenius Medical Care. “We are additionally drawn to the area’s outstanding business climate, and are looking forward to developing and expanding our presence here in the coming years.”

The Knoxville facility will produce dialysis related products, which will be distributed to Fresenius Medical Care’s clinics and distribution centers in the eastern part of the United States. The company currently serves more than 266,000 patients in 3,220 clinics, 10 of those are located within a 30-mile radius of downtown Knoxville.

Fresenius Medical Care joins several other successful medical equipment manufacturing companies in Innovation Valley like ProNova, Seimens, DeRoyal, and Kimble Chase Life Science. Medical equipment is one of Innovation Valley’s target recruitment sectors because of the region’s trained workforce and easy access to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Knox County Development Board officials said.

“The Knox County Industrial Development Board is thrilled to have been part of the recruitment of such an outstanding company to Knox County,” said Trey Coleman, chair Knox County Industrial Development Board. “With the number of new jobs and capital investment being reported, Fresenius Medical Care will have a very positive long-term economic impact on our community, which made it easy to support local tax incentives for this project.”  

Fresenius Medical Care will begin hiring in different phases. Toward the middle of 2014 it will begin hiring for support jobs, such as engineering facilities management, and in the fourth quarter of 2015, it plans to begin hiring for other positions such as supervisors, technicians, production line workers and maintenance.