Building 63 opens

Monday, June 17— With the raising of the flag and an employee choir’s national anthem preceding them, Mayor Virg Bernero and Emergent BioSolutions officials unveiled the company’s newest $9.6 million, 32,000-square-foot addition. 

The biopharmaceutical company’s new administration building, on North Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, was designed according to employees’ suggestions. This new structure on Emergent’s campus is far removed from the 80s-style offices that are clustered around it.

With its new offices, conference rooms, collaboration spaces, dining area and workout facilities, “Buiding 63” provides more than just a change in environment and design, said Daniel Abdun-Nabi, Emergent president and CEO.

“The building is symbolic for the transformation that is occurring,” he said.

The Maryland-based company has seen much growth over its 15-year lifespan, emerging as a publicly traded company specializing in developing vaccines for infectious diseases and for counter-anthrax products. In 1998, when it was known as BioPort Corp., it acquired property in Lansing for an anthrax vaccine manufacturing facility.

The company now spans three continents. The number of employees has grown from about 150 to 850. In the last ten years, the company has invested more than $200 million in its Lansing campus, with $9.6 million of that on the new building.

“We are very much goal-oriented and we achieve what we put out there as our goals,” said Fuad El-Hibri, Emergent’s executive chairman of the board and former CEO. “We were unknown in the late 90s, almost infamous. We had somewhat of a checkered past … but I think it’s safe to say we are now the leader.”