Expanded facilities will create 35 jobs, $8 million capital investment
STURTEVANT, WI. MAY 25, 2022 – Merz North America, Inc., an aesthetics and neurotoxin manufacturer, is expanding its facilities in Sturtevant and Franksville – an $8 million project expected to create 35 jobs over the next three years.
“Merz has a global presence in its industry and Wisconsin plays a critical role in its operations,” said Missy Hughes, secretary and CEO of Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), the state’s leading economic development organization. “Its continued presence and job creation in Wisconsin is an effort WEDC can proudly support.”
“The additional funding from WEDC has definitely given us the ability to do some additional project work — we were able to get some equipment ordered sooner because we didn’t have the funding for that,” said Dean Erickson, VP of facilities operations at Merz’s Sturtevant facility. “It ultimately got us making these improvements sooner in the program than was originally expected.”
WEDC is supporting the project by authorizing up to $160,000 in state income tax credits over the next three years. The actual amount of tax credits Merz will receive is contingent upon the number of jobs created.
Merz requires expanded facilities to ramp up production and meet the rapidly growing demand for its bulking agents containing Calcium Hydroxyapatite (CaHa). The company ultimately hopes to triple its current output of a million syringe assemblies per year. Doing so demands improvements to the Sturtevant facility and warehouse, where particle manufacturing, packaging and distribution take place, as well as the Franksville facility, which focuses on final product manufacturing.
Raleigh, North Carolina is home to Merz’s North American headquarters. The family-owned company has two manufacturing facilities in Germany and Wisconsin, along with one in Switzerland, and it distributes to over 65 countries. The Wisconsin locations, in operation since 1998, specialize in aesthetic products, stress urinary incontinence products and vocal fold insufficiency products. Demand is growing for Merz’s implants creating the need for expanded Wisconsin production and distribution.
“It’s a global situation where every market has had significantly increased sales, so we are responding to that increase in demand,” Erickson said. “There really isn’t any aspect of our production line, production facility and manufacturing buildings that we’re not making some changes to.”
