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IMMCO moves lab division to downtown medical corridor

By Jonathan D. Epstein
NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
Published:February 22, 2011

An Amherst-based diagnostic products and services company that bought a laboratory division from Upstate New York Transplant Services has now spent $1 million to relocate that business to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

As of Monday, IMMCO Diagnostics moved the former UNYLAB Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics to the Innovation Center at 640 Ellicott St., on the downtown campus near Buffalo General Hospital, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and other medical facilities.

Until now, the business, which IMMCO acquired from UNYTS 18 months ago for an undisclosed price, had been housed on Broadway. IMMCO also officially renamed the businesses to adopt the IMMCO moniker.

Additionally, the 40-year-old private company plans to move its diagnostic immunology testing and consulting businesses from its Amherst headquarters and manufacturing center to the new office.

That allows IMMCO to expand the operations and broaden its services, while also freeing up space in Amherst to expand manufacturing so it can meet demands for its diagnostic testing kits. The move allows IMMCO to support the regional efforts to strengthen and grow the medical campus — a key factor in the decision to move downtown, said owner and President and CEO Bill Maggio.

“I could have easily expanded in Amherst or at our facilities in Toronto. I just felt this was the right thing to do, given all the enthusiasm of the medical corridor,” said Maggio, a native Western New Yorker and self-described “huge Buffalobacker.”

“I saw this as a great opportunity to support what I see as a great initiative for Western New York.”

The company invested $1 million in the build-out of the space, including instrumentation, furniture and fixtures, and lease payments. In all, the new site will house 20 employees, with plans to add four more by year-end, and continue the growth afterward.

“We are thrilled to welcome IMMCO and other growing life sciences and biotech companies that want to be near the thriving clinical care, research and medical education institutions on the BNMC,” said Matthew K. Enstice, the president and CEO of the medical campus.

Founded in 1971, IMMCO makes and sells autoimmune disease test kits and related components for taking and evaluating patient samples, such as blood. The company distributes the kits to laboratories, physicians and other healthcare providers in more than 55 countries, with primary facilities in Amherst and Canada and a network in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The company employs about 190 people worldwide, including just under 100 in Amherst.

It also has a contract research group that supports clinical research trials for pharmaceutical and biotech clients.

Its lab services division also offers national testing for autoimmune diseases and immunopathology, receiving specimen collection kits back from medical providers and labs, testing them, and sending back full test reports. UNYTS had its own laboratory focused on organ transplant work, so after IMMCO started expanding in that field, it acquired that unit as a “nice extension of our business,” Maggio said.

The immunogenetics business performs comprehensive tissue-typing services and tests for susceptibility to conditions such as celiac disease. Transplant immunology performs tissue and other “typing” tests for stem cell, organ and bone marrow transplants, including to evaluate candidates and donors, and monitors patients after transplants.