BLAINE, WA-Locally based contract drug maker Diversified Bio-Medics has selected Snohomish County as the home for an 80,000-sf pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. Chief executive Garry Montgomery tells GlobeSt.com the next step is to pick one of several entitled sites whereon the $50-million to $60-million development can be under construction within 120 days and operational in 2008.

Diversified Bio-Medics manufactures pharmaceuticals for drug companies. Its manufacturing facility will be the only one of its kind in the western US, according to officials with the Snohomish County Economic Development Council.

Montgomery says search will begin in earnest in the latter half of the month, after his facilities people relocate from the Bay Area, where the company had been looking for a site. Snohomish County's response to the company's RFP changed all that.

"Our selection company liked what they saw," Montgomery says. Among those things it likes are the cost of living; infrastructure; the state's effort to extend tax breaks to bioscience manufacturers; and the regulatory scene.

"The regulatory environment in California is onerous compared to Washington," he says. In addition, he says Snohomish County has "a highly competent process in facilitating and expediting the permitting process and by having the proper power, water and disposal infrastructure in place."

Diversified Bio-Medics is seeking a five-acre site. Montgomery says the search includes properties inside and outside city limits. Two of the sites the company is considering "already have the infrastructure in place to put up walls," he says. The price tags for the entitled building-ready sites they will look at reportedly range from $6 million to $10 million.