Fortune 100 company to join N.C. Research Campus

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — A global company with an emphasis on scientific research and development and the potential to create hundreds of jobs is expected to join the N.C. Research Campus.

Representatives for the $1.5 billion life sciences campus in downtown Kannapolis called the unnamed tenant "significant" and a "Fortune 100 company."

The company eventually could employ hundreds of people in Kannapolis, said Phyllis Beaver, marketing director for campus developer Castle & Cooke North Carolina.

"This is a great step forward," Beaver said. "They have the potential to create to many jobs."

Beaver would not reveal the name of the company, leaving that for Research Campus founder David Murdock, who will make the announcement at 10 a.m. Thursday in Kannapolis.

A press conference will follow in the state-of-the-art proteomics laboratory in the campus centerpiece Core Lab, which helped attract the tenant, Beaver said.

Between 20 and 25 people will start the company's operation at the Research Campus, which will include new scientific research, she said.

"The N.C. Research Campus takes a giant step forward with the addition of a significant new tenant, a global company that will speed the development of breakthrough science at the Kannapolis campus," a press advisory said.

Murdock, the billionaire owner of Dole Food Co., and top-ranking officials from the company will attend Thursday's announcement.

The campus, which focuses on health, nutrition and agriculture, includes branches of eight North Carolina universities, a community college and more than a dozen private companies called partners.

In the past year, high-profile tenants Pepsico and Pharmaceutical Product Development, which had promised up to 300 new jobs, decided not to join the campus.