Industry News

St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare is building Progress West Healthcare Center in O’Fallon, Mo. The $75-million, 72-bed hospital will employ 300 health-care professionals when it opens in early 2006.

ABC Group, a manufacturer of automotive systems and components, will invest $19 million to open a new 140,000-sf manufacturing facility in London , Ky.

Toledo, Ohio-based Owens Corning is planning to construct a 50,000-sf insulation manufacturing plant in Gresham , Ore. Supplying the company’s rigid XPS products to the western United States and western Canada , the plant is expected to begin operations in 2005. 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is planning to construct a new breast cancer research institute funded by a $7-million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Designed to allow investigators to better collaborate on research findings, the facility will feature state-of-the-art laboratories and additional research space. The University of Wisconsin was awarded a similar grant last year for the creation of a research institute on prostate cancer.

Electron microscope maker FEI Corp. has opened its enhanced Eindhoven , Netherlands, campus, featuring the “NanoPort," a state-of-the-art product and applications center. Providing space for collaborative R&D projects, such as the European Union’s Interaction Proteome Project, the NanoPort accommodates scientists working in the disciplines of biotechnology, materials science, structural biology, proteomics, pathology, and semiconductors and data storage. The facility houses a range of transmission and scanning electron microscopes, as well as ion beam and dual-beam systems.