St. Jude Medical Opens Doors at New Costa Rica Facility

St. Jude Medical is up and running in Costa Rica. On Friday, Sept. 10, the company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new offshore facility for manufacturing heart valves. The plant is located in the El Coyol Free Zone in the city of Alajuela. Construction began in December 2008.

“The arrival of St. Jude is not only a great opportunity for Costa Rica, but also represents an enormous challenge that will test our institutional muscle,” Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to the local paper the Tico Times. “It obliges us to strengthen our innovation technology, commit greater effort to developing our young professionals, and keep fighting to improve the competitiveness of our economy.”

The paper reported that the Minnesota-based device giant plans to invest an estimated $670 million in Costa Rica and employ up to 2,000 people in the next five years. The plant already employs 250 people and plans to hire another 50 workers by the end of the year, the newspaper reported.

In January last year, officials at St. Jude Medical said the company planned to invest more than $40 million to build a 20,000-square-meter facility that could employ as many as 500 people by the end of this year. At the time of the announcement, the plan was to begin exporting heart valves by the end of 2010.

“St. Jude Medical has chosen Costa Rica as an expansion site because of its robust business environment, talented workforce and its strategic location in an area where we see strong growth potential,” Michael T. Rousseau, group president of St. Jude Medical, said when the project was announced. “We appreciate the opportunity to do business in Costa Rica and look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship.”