Photo by Jasmyne Ray.
Dr. Pooran Chand recently opened Therachem, a biopharmaceutical research lab, in Chelsea.
It’s not hard to think of Birmingham proper as the home for large medical companies and research facilities, but as you get farther from the city, those companies might be harder to find. Chelsea, however, recently gained Therachem, a new biopharmaceutical research lab.
Therachem initially started custom synthesis work in 2005, and now has locations in both Chelsea and India.
“I have over there about 100 people in India,” Dr. Pooran Chand said. “They are in research and small-scale manufacturing … for biotech companies and pharmaceutical companies.”
The decision to open in Chelsea was made for a couple of reasons.
First, Chand said, it would be good for business to have a location in the United States, and the company would be able to reach and attract more clients more easily. They can also produce and communicate results with clients in a faster manner than through their location in India.
According to its website, Therachem is a “full-service contract-based organization that offers quality solutions to support drug discovery and development and large-scale synthesis.”
The Alabama location houses the main management office, as well as the U.S. Laboratory and Research Center, which is designed to “deliver fast and expert solutions to manage medicinal chemistry research projects and to carry out small-scale synthesis for timely delivery of results and products.”
Chand said Chelsea provided a welcoming and supportive atmosphere for his new location when they were looking to open locally.
“When I was looking for the location, I talked to city people over here, and they were very friendly,” he said. “They were very encouraging.”
At a Dec. 18 Chelsea City Council meeting, Councilman Casey Morris said: “It opens the door for data centers to look at Chelsea as a possibility. It’s a stable business for our community to bring in quality jobs.”
Morris added that Therachem shows “the possibilities are wide open for business.”
The Chelsea location is also close to Chand’s home in Highland Lakes, and the cost of living and doing business in the Birmingham area is affordable. “So, proverbially, I can attract chemists to work over here, and expenses overall hopefully will be less compared to Boston or San Francisco [or] bigger cities,” Chand said.
Chand also said he has noticed some high school chemistry programs are “not where [they] should be” and would like to work with high school students to train them for the real world of chemistry and prepare them for a job in that field.
“My objective is that students can get trained over here, and if I need to hire some people … they can work here or they can go anywhere with a better understanding of chemistry and better understanding of particularly the pharma industry, so they can get better jobs,” he said.
By way of internships, Chand said students would be able to learn about chemistry in a more hands-on atmosphere and be prepared for post-graduation success.
And after living in the area, Chand can see the benefits of opening in the Chelsea area.
“There are a lot of opportunities to grow this business, and we can double [our] good contracts … and support pharmaceutical industry in this area,” he said. “There is a very good possibility to know that if we get some good piece of land over here, we can put a building for manufacturing that can create 50 to 75 jobs, skilled jobs.”
Therachem is located at 100 Jade Park. For more information, visit therachem.net.
