Through state funded incentives and money from private investors, the state of Ohio has enticed ViewRay Inc. to relocate both its headquarters and manufacturing operations to Cleveland. After relocating, the company has promised to create 25 Cleveland jobs within the first year. These positions will include both software and hardware engineers, according to the CEO of ViewRay, Will Wells.
The move will not only create new jobs in Cleveland, but will also put it in a center of biotechnology. ViewRay was attracted by the area’s history of work in medical imagery and it’s academic institutions that specialize in medical instruction. Wells told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the company is “lucky to find extremely talented people who have advanced degrees and a broad history in the imaging field.” He went on to say that this is the reason they chose to move to the area.
The company plans to move from Gainesville, Florida to a 41,000 square foot facility. ViewRay will be building its Renaissance System 1000 in Oakword, a suburb. This machine uses magnetic resonance images to accurately find and direct gamma radiation at cancerous tumors while doing little damage to the healthy tissue surrounding the area.
The project is expected to cost $13.5 million and will generate almost 100 new Cleveland jobs during its first three years of operations. ViewRay is planning to pay around $100,000 a year for the first positions it will be creating.
Private investors offered the company approximately $25 million in investments if the company would leave Gainesville in favor of an area that is a center of bioscience innovation. The companies providing this incentive include OrbiMed Advisors LLC, Fidelity Biosciences, Kearny Venture Partners and Aisling Captail, all of which are blue-chip biomedical venture capital investment companies.
Also contributing to the move was an offer by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority for creating Cleveland jobs which is worth $537,431 over the next 10 years. On top of the other incentives, ViewRay will be receiving a $200,000 state Rapid Outreach grant that will be used for to help pay for the costs connected to purchasing necessary machinery and equipment.
The company plans to begin building sometimes in July and will soon after begin to create new Cleveland job opportunities.