Only a few weeks ago, local economic development officials weren’t too familiar with a company called Berlex.

In a region where a number of homegrown companies – from Bothell’s ICOS Corp. to Seattle-based Corixa – have become biotechnology stars, New Jersey-based Berlex Inc. isn’t a well-known name. That’s despite its workforce of approximately 200 in Seattle and Bothell.

The company has made a splash in the past week, however, by announcing plans to build a $60 million biotech drug plant in Lynnwood. The facility would be the first of its kind in the state.

“I think it’s really a plus in a lot of ways. It’s an international company with a local workforce that it wants to keep here,” said Deborah Knutson, president of the Snohomish County Economic Development Council.

Berlex plans to make Leukine at the plant when it opens up in three years or so. That drug, purchased from Seattle-based Immunex in 2002, helps cancer patients recover from chemotherapy and other treatments. It’s also being tested as a promising treatment for Crohn’s disease.

The decision to build the 90,000-square-foot plant in the Opus Northpointe Corporate Campus was especially significant because Snohomish County was hardly a shoo-in, said Gary Bullington, a director at Cushman &Wakefield.

“The level of investigative work and breadth of potential facility options that were examined was almost unprecedented in my experience,” said Bullington, who along with fellow Cushman broker Tom Bohman represented Opus Northpointe in Berlex’s deal.

He said a relocation firm began examining options for Berlex about 18 months ago. When the search firm contacted him, Knutson and others for information about the county, Berlex was not identified as the interested company. Instead, it was referred to as “Project Echo.”

Bullington and Knutson both said they and others speculated that the unidentified company interested in building a facility here might be ICOS, the largest biotech firm based in the state.

“There was a lot of inaccurate guessing going on,” Bullington said.

Since finding out the company’s identity about a few weeks ago, Bullington said he’s learned much more about Berlex.

The company is the U.S. division of Germany’s Schering AG, a global pharmaceutical company that employs 26,000 people and is a leader in producing birth control and dyes used for diagnostic imaging. Schering’s sales exceeded $5.8 billion last year.

Despite its big presence in traditional pharmaceuticals, Schering has paid more attention recently to cancer treatments and other biotech-developed therapies. Berlex’s purchase of the Leukine drug helped greatly advance its presence in market in this country.

At least 60 percent of the Berlex staff in Seattle and Bothell are ex-Immunex employees, estimated David Carlson, a vice president for Berlex in Bothell. Of course, there are a few changes. For example, Immunex never offered German language training for employees, like Berlex does.

Carlson confirmed that Berlex looked far and wide when deciding where to place its new plant. In the U.S., in addition to offices on the East Coast, Berlex has an office in the San Francisco Bay area.

In the end, the experience of the company’s existing workforce in this area helped tip the balance toward Snohomish County. In addition to building at a new location here, Carlson said Berlex examined the idea of expanding at its leased location in the Canyon Park area.

“It was one of the options we looked at quite extensively. It really came down to renovating this building or doing something new,” he said.

Berlex becomes the second company to locate in the Opus Northpointe development along 164th Street SW. In late 2002, Cypress Semiconductor moved into its building there.

If Berlex eventually builds as much manufacturing and office space as it envisions on the 16 acres it purchased, about half the developable space available in Opus Northpointe will be left, Bullington said.

Carlson said that if any other biotech company looks to put a similar manufacturing plant in the Puget Sound area, Snohomish County may be the most logical place because of its relatively inexpensive and large pieces of land compared to King County.

That’s a notion that economic development officials have already highlighted in their efforts to attract more biotech jobs to the county. County Executive Aaron Reardon added that Berlex’s plant will help to further diversify the economy away from its historic dependence on aerospace.

“This is really a positive step in that direction,” he said.

As for its growing presence in Snohomish County, Berlex officials said they’re happy to contribute. In addition to potentially becoming the global supply center for Leukine, other drugs could eventually be made at the Lynnwood plant, too, spokeswoman Cathy Keck Anderson.

“We’re definitely very interested in working with the EDC, the state and others in growing the biotech cluster and activity here,” she said.

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.