Why did the Portland, OR Intel Executive cross the road...?

Answer:  To get to the new Genentech.  November marks the date the roof goes up.  Summer opens.  300 employees.  Plans for 1000 soon thereafter.  This site is right across the street from Intel's $2.9 billion dollar Fab, Ronler Acres.  Here comes the BOOM! Ready or not!

Check out our website for available properties.  Vancouver, WA is a great place too!.  The appreciation in this market is going to be great this year.  Here's the article in the Oregonian about Genentech:

Monday, May 21, 2007

G enentech's numbers are impressive: Dozens of biomedical products on the market and in the pipeline. Billions of dollars in sales.  More than 10,000 people -- from researchers to groundskeepers -- on the payroll in California.  An investment in Oregon that will total more than $400 million and add roughly 1,000 jobs to Washington County's employment rolls.  Those are the figures Barry Starkman, who will lead Genentech's Hillsboro facility when it is completed, brags about when he gives the business community an overview of the 30-year-old company. 

Site preparation is under way for the company's new packaging and distribution center at Northwest Shute and Evergreen roads in Hillsboro.  If all goes according to schedule, the building will be enclosed by early November and the first group of workers will be on the job the following summer.

The county's newest industry -- seen as a possible nucleus for biotech in Oregon -- was recruited with a financial incentive from the state's Strategic Reserve Fund. The company spent much of that money with Portland Community College for programs to train prospective employees.

There are other ways Genentech spends money that reveals even more about the company's philosophy.  Its practices go beyond the bottom line and give insight into its attitude toward the people the company was founded to help.  Starkman says the drug market is crowded with painkillers, allergy medicines and diet pills. That's not what Genentech does.

The company is a pioneer in creating drugs that save lives.  Its first product was a synthetic insulin. It also makes drugs to fight cancers and help people with vision afflictions see again. He says there was a time, for example, when a woman showed up to see her oncologist about a certain type of breast cancer and an honest doctor would tell the patient she had a limited life expectancy.  "Now they say, 'Thank God that is the type of cancer you have. We can treat that,' " he says.

Although the cost of research, testing and marketing can make the drugs expensive, the medicines to fight cancer or prolong lives aren't limited to those with top-of-the-line health insurance or bulging stock portfolios. Genentech has given away more than $700 million worth of its medicine to patients who can't afford to buy it.

It is a program that began more than 20 years ago, and last year Genentech donated more than $205 million worth of medicine to people who couldn't afford it.  The company goes beyond just shipping vials and pills to people who don't have the money to pay for them.  Genentech also has reached into its bank account to help people who have medical or drug insurance but who can't afford their share of the cost.

Since 2005, it has shifted more than $70 million to charities that use the money for insurance co-payments.  "We simply believe that no patient who needs one of our medicines should go without it," Starkman says.  "There are things more important than simply profit."

It is a philosophy that corporate America -- and we as individuals -- too often forget.