Quality Chemical Laboratories (QCL) is now just weeks away from opening its new expanded facility and with that, also increasing the size of its staff.
 
“The new building will house both an expansion of existing analytical chemistry capabilities and new capabilities for formulation development,” said Michael Barron, QCL’s director of business development.
 
The new building is 35,000 square feet and sits around the corner from QCL’s four other buildings at the North Chase Industrial Park off Interstate 40 just south of the Interstate 140 interchange. Once completed, the QCL footprint will be around 90,000 square feet.
 
QCL serves the pharmaceutical industry by providing scientific services in support of drug products, drug substances, in-process materials and raw materials in all phases of research, development and commercialization. Founded here in 1998 with three employees, the company currently has 175 people on staff. Barron said an additional 60 people will soon be hired to support near- to mid-term growth projections.
 
“The new construction is nearly complete,  and the efforts to populate the building with equipment and instrumentation will begin in earnest by the end of September,” Barron said.  
 
Once all the equipment is in place, the regulatory process for qualifying analytical laboratory instrumentation and its supporting infrastructure begins. Qualification of analytical instruments and validation of systems is required and must meet a variety of national and international regulations and quality standards.
 
“A Validation Master Plan drives the overall effort and individual qualification protocols must be followed for each item,” Barron explained. “The estimated time to going live is by the first of the year.”
 
The new facility will also support quality assurance, finance, business development, information technology and metrology. Additional space is slated for chemical storage and sample storage.