Merz North America expanding Racine County operations

Raleigh, North Carolina-based Merz North America, Inc., an aesthetics and neurotoxin manufacturer, is expanding its facilities in Sturtevant and Franksville in Racine County. The $8 million project is expected to create 35 jobs over the next three years, according to a news release today from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

WEDC is supporting the project by authorizing up to $160,000 in state income tax credits over the next three years. The actual amount of tax credits Merz will receive is contingent upon the actual number of jobs created.

“Merz has a global presence in its industry and Wisconsin plays a critical role in its operations,” said Missy Hughes, secretary and CEO of WEDC. “Its continued presence and job creation in Wisconsin is an effort WEDC can proudly support.”

“The additional funding from WEDC has definitely given us the ability to do some additional project work — we were able to get some equipment ordered sooner because we didn’t have the funding for that,” said Dean Erickson, vice president of facilities operations at Merz’s Sturtevant facility. “It ultimately got us making these improvements sooner in the program than was originally expected.”

Merz needs to expand its facilities to ramp up production and meet the growing demand for its bulking agents containing Calcium Hydroxyapatite (CaHa). The company hopes to eventually triple its current output of a million syringe assemblies per year.

To achieve that goal, the company says it needs to improve the Sturtevant facility and warehouse, where particle manufacturing, packaging and distribution take place, as well as the Franksville facility, which focuses on final product manufacturing.

Merz’s North American’s Wisconsin locations, in operation since 1998, specialize in aesthetic products, stress urinary incontinence products and vocal fold insufficiency products. The company says that demand is growing for its implants, creating the need for expanded production and distribution in Wisconsin.

“It’s a global situation where every market has had significantly increased sales, so we are responding to that increase in demand,” Erickson said. “There really isn’t any aspect of our production line, production facility and manufacturing buildings that we’re not making some changes to.”