Winchester in running for major drug manufacturer

Winchester Mayor JoEllen Reed was out walk­ing her dog last Saturday when a neigh­bor asked whether she had heard the news. President Donald Trump had announced a $100 mil­lion invest­ment for her town, but only “if Republicans win” the mid-term elec­tions on Nov. 3. 

“That was a sur­prise to all of us,” Reed told WinCity Voices. 

Reed has since con­firmed that the com­pa­ny the pres­i­dent referred to dur­ing a cam­paign ral­ly in Highland Heights, Kentucky, on Oct.17 is con­sid­er­ing Winchester as a loca­tion for a large phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing facility. 

“I will tell you that I have met with a poten­tial com­pa­ny, and if it comes about, it will be a tremen­dous asset for Winchester,” the may­or said. “I think we’re going to try to meet again in about a week or so and see where both sides are, and go from there.” 

“I feel like it’s some­thing that may hap­pen fair­ly soon if it hap­pens for us,” she said. 

Mason Guy, chair­man of the Winchester-Clark County Industrial Development Authority’s board of direc­tors, said Thursday that he, too, has talked with the com­pa­ny, Antheia, of Menlo Park, California. 

“I think we’re in the run­ning,” he said. 

Guy said his under­stand­ing is that Winchester is one of three cities being con­sid­ered for the facil­i­ty. The oth­er two are in oth­er states. 

He said he was told that “the pres­i­dent kind of jumped the gun” in mak­ing the announcement. 

“They cer­tain­ly have not made a final deter­mi­na­tion,” he said. 

Antheia is con­sid­er­ing prop­er­ty in the Winchester Industrial Park and pos­si­bly else­where in the com­mu­ni­ty.  Guy dis­missed the idea that the devel­op­ment is con­di­tioned on whether Republicans win elections. 

“Those are not relat­ed,” he said. 

It’s an eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment deci­sion, not any­thing to do with par­ti­san pol­i­tics, he explained. However, Antheia issued a press release that said it had secured up to $80 mil­lion in con­di­tion­al fund­ing from the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital. 

The release did not spec­i­fy the con­di­tions attached to the funding. 

The announce­ment came one day after the president’s speech in Kentucky. 

“The con­di­tion­al financ­ing, along­side addi­tion­al pri­vate cap­i­tal, would sup­port Antheia’s U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing strat­e­gy, bol­ster­ing the company’s efforts to onshore pro­duc­tion of crit­i­cal phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ingre­di­ents that are vital to pub­lic health and nation­al secu­ri­ty,” the com­pa­ny said. 

It said the United States relies on for­eign sources for approx­i­mate­ly 90 per­cent of its sup­ply of ingre­di­ents, leav­ing Americans “high­ly vul­ner­a­ble to drug short­ages” caused by pub­lic health emer­gen­cies, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, inter­na­tion­al ten­sions and sup­ply chain failures. 

Dr. Christina Smolke, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer and co-founder of Antheia, said in the release that advanced bio man­u­fac­tur­ing offers the U.S. “a direct path to secur­ing these sup­ply chains while regain­ing glob­al lead­er­ship in a strate­gic tech­nol­o­gy sector.” 

“Access to a long-term loan through OSC would give Antheia mean­ing­ful flex­i­bil­i­ty as we build our next phase of com­mer­cial growth,” Eric d’Esparbes, chief finan­cial offi­cer, said. 

In his cam­paign speech for Senate can­di­date Andy Barr and oth­er Republicans in Highland Heights, Trump said: “If the Republicans win, the Department of War will be invest­ing $100 mil­lion in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny Antheia to revi­tal­ize a gigan­tic drug man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Winchester, Kentucky.” 

Scottie Ellis, a spokesper­son for Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said after the announce­ment, the admin­is­tra­tion had been giv­en “no infor­ma­tion on this.” 

According to the Courier Journal, she added that, if “invest­ments from the Department of Defense — or Trump’s ‘Department of War’ (DOW) — are con­di­tioned on the out­come of the elec­tion, it’s time for the Department of Justice to inves­ti­gate the DOW.” 

Beshear said the next day that con­di­tion­ing a depart­ment invest­ment on one par­ty win­ning an elec­tion would be ille­gal and amount to “a bribe.” 

Politics aside, local lead­ers are excit­ed about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Winchester and Clark County may get a major eco­nom­ic investment. 

Guy said Antheia’s project would be a new com­pa­ny, not a revi­tal­iza­tion or expan­sion of an exist­ing man­u­fac­tur­er. It could pos­si­bly employ as many as 50–60 work­ers, he said, and if it uses an exist­ing build­ing, those would be new jobs, not jobs moved here from some­where else. The new jobs would pay in the range of $90,000 to $92,000 per year, he said. 

“I think it would be won­der­ful” if the com­pa­ny were to come to Winchester, Guy said. 

Not only would the com­pa­ny pro­vide good jobs and gen­er­ate rev­enue for the com­mu­ni­ty from the occu­pa­tion­al tax, but it would be a good cor­po­rate cit­i­zen, Guy indicated. 

“They real­ly did express a very strong desire to be a com­mu­ni­ty part­ner,” he said. “They talked about the qual­i­ty of life and how they would like to be an active par­tic­i­pant in the community.” 

“I’m just pray­ing that it hap­pens for Winchester,” Reed said.