Syngenta Biotechnology, which recently announced plans to expand its North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park, also is expanding operations in China.
The subsidiary of the Swiss drug maker plans to spend $100 million over the next five years to expand at the Zhongguancun Life Science Park in Beijing. The company already employs 70 people there.
That facility is overseen by officials in RTP, including Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, who left rival Bayer CropScience in October to become president of Syngenta Biotechnology.
"The capability expansion in China, combined with that of our U.S. biotechnology facility, will enable us to continue providing new solutions that increase crop yield and productivity, and offer additional choices for growers,” he said in a prepared statement.
Earlier this month, Syngenta Biotechnology announced it leased 100,000 square feet of additional space in RTP and signed a contract to purchase 50 acres of land as a possible future expansion site.
The company employs more than 400 people at its RTP campus, where it develops crop protection products and genetically engineered corn and soybean seeds that are more resistant to drought and disease.
Assistant Business Editor Alan M. Wolf joined the N&O in 1999 covering the business of health care. He became an editor in 2001, and helps oversee the paper's daily business coverage and Sunday Work&Money section. He lives in Clayton with his wife and two children. Reach him at 919-829-4572 or