Swiss life sciences company choses Tampa for regional HQ

Inpeco, a Swiss health care company, is opening a regional headquarters in Tampa.

The clinical lab automation company will open a 2,650-square-foot office at the University of South Florida’s CAMLS — Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation — in downtown.

Maricel Roberts, president and managing director, Americas, for Inpeco says in a statement the company chose Tampa because it is a “thriving metropolitan area and its downtown core is packed with leading healthcare institutions conducting groundbreaking research, developing new technologies and training the healthcare leaders of tomorrow.”

Inpeco introduced the first automation system to reduce errors in clinical labs to advance medical diagnoses in 1995. The company, today, manufactures and delivers more than 2,400 lab automation systems to 78 countries.

The Tampa operations will house a total of 15 people working on financial, quality, people and talent, and business operations teams.

The company joins a growing roster of life science and health care companies expanding into the area, including NuMedTechs, Axogen and Pfizer. 

Haru Okuda, the executive director of CAMLS and a USF Health Morsani College of Medicine professor, says Inpeco coming will help the city bring in more companies “and make this region a global player in the development of health care technologies.”

CAMLS is a 90,000-square-foot, three-story facility that is part of USF Health’s downtown operations. The center, which opened 10 years ago, has 60,000 square feet set aside for surgical skills labs, operating trauma suites and patient exam rooms. There’s also more than 25,000 square feet of meeting and conference space.

According to its website, it is the "world’s largest, free-standing simulation facilities exclusively dedicated to training healthcare professionals."

The Tampa Bay Economic Development Council, which helped recruit Inpeco, announced the news of the move. It worked with the company by providing community and labor market overviews, hosting site visits and assisting with real estate searches along with making connections with local medical, university and workforce groups.

“Health tech is an important and growing sector of our life sciences and healthcare industry,” says James Nozar, chair of the Tampa Bay EDC, in the statement.