Pharmaceutical company planning to relocate from California to Fishers

1Elevan Biopharmaceuticals plans to move to a vacant building at 12001 Exit Five Parkway. (Photo courtesy Google Maps)

A California-based pharmaceutical company that specializes in peptide therapeutics plans to relocate to a vacant industrial building near Interstate 69 and East 121st Street in Fishers, where it expects to build a workforce of at least 120 employees over the next decade.

Members of the Fishers City Council on Monday night voted 9-0 to approve an economic development agreement with 1Elevan Biopharmaceuticals Inc., which plans to begin construction this year to renovate the building at 12001 Exit Five Parkway and sign a 10-year lease to occupy the facility.

Fishers Economic Development Director Megan Baumgartner told councilors that the incentive package for 1Elevan features a 10-year, 100% vacant-building tax abatement and a 10-year, 100% personal-property tax abatement on the company’s equipment.

“Our life sciences industry has been such a key piece of our economic development success over the last five years,” Baumgartner said.

1Elevan is expected to invest up to $10 million to retrofit the building to qualify for the abatement. The company also is expected to employ 35 people by the end of 2027 and at least 120 people by 2035 at an average annual salary of $90,000.

Peptide therapeutics are pharmaceutical agents composed of amino acids that treat or could someday treat disorders including diabetes, obesity, cancer, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative problems.

“They are starting their business as a compounding pharmacy, so that is taking different elements and different materials that are manufactured off-site and combining them all into one single drug and then distributing them that way,” Baumgartner said.

The 130,000-square-foot building previously housed Juno Lighting Group, which produced commercial lighting fixtures in Fishers until about six years ago.

CEO Darrin Carrico founded 1Elevan in 2022 in San Diego. Carrico, a Purdue University graduate who has spent the past 35 years living in California, told councilors that 1Elevan will have an academic affiliation with Purdue and that he is moving the company to Fishers because he said Indiana’s regulatory tax environment is more conducive to his business than California’s.

He also noted the number of other life sciences companies in that area of Fishers, which has put a focus attracting a cluster of companies in the industry in the city. In recent years, Fishers has attracted companies like Genezen Laboratories Inc., INCOG Biopharma Services Inc. and Italy-based Stevenato Group and worked to build the 75-acre Fishers Life Science & Innovation Park south of East 126th Street and east of Interstate 69.

“It’s an unusual situation to have collaborative partners within the same proximity,” Carrico said. “We’re committed. We’re here for the long haul.”