Lawmakers and business leaders joined cancer survivors and other patients Friday to celebrate the official relocation of the pharmaceutical company Incyte’s headquarters to Wilmington.
Incyte Corporation was awarded a $10 million grant from the Delaware Strategic Fund and a capital expenditure grant worth more than a million dollars from the Delaware Economic Development Office in 2012 to make the move.
DEDO Director Alan Levin says those efforts to keep Incyte in Delaware reflect a commitment from Governor Jack Markell’s administration to bring jobs to the First State.
"The key to our success is really that we have a governor that is so invested in promoting this state and creating jobs. This is all his administration has been: jobs, jobs, jobs," said Levin.
Incyte’s new headquarters is located in a newly-renovated 191,000-square foot facility at the site of the former John Wanamaker building.
The building will house more than 550 employees.
Hervé Hoppenot, president and CEO of Incyte, says those employees are at the top of their fields.
"When you think of Incyte, it’s all about a team. A team of highly skilled people. We have, in this building every day, some of the best chemists in the world, some of the best biologists in the world," said Hoppenot.
Incyte has been in the First State since 2002. It's best known for Jakafi, the first and only FDA-approved treatment for a rare and potentially life-threatening blood cancer. That drug received FDA approval in 2011.
