http://www.pressrepublican.com/homepage/local_story_171230043.html

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Wyeth to remain open through 2009
Rouses Point plant will be open year longer than expected

By SUZANNE MOORE
Staff Writer


ROUSES POINT -- Wyeth Pharmaceuticals will keep its plant here open a year longer than planned.

"We will be continuing manufacturing through 2009 in order to meet ongoing product demands and ensure we have reliable product supply for our patients and customers," said Wendy Kouba, a spokesman for the company's corporate headquarters in Collegeville, Pa.

The news was announced to employees during a series of all-hands meetings on Wednesday.

"I think it's great," said Shana Blain of Champlain, a process operator who has worked at the plant since 1997. "But I think it would be better if they would tell us there is a complete (sale)."

Wyeth has been marketing the facility since soon after the eventual closure was announced in October 2005. Wednesday, employees reported to the Press-Republican that they had been told there are potential purchasers on the hook.

"There's two possible buyers," Blain said.

The changeover to another pharmaceutical firm would mean more security, Blain said, but she considers another year of the status quo nothing to sneeze at.

"I just want a paycheck," she said. "I like my Wyeth money."

Wyeth's decision came as no surprise to some, who, while they didn't want to be quoted in the newspaper, said they'd heard company operations in Ireland -- where Rouses Point's Premarin production is being moved -- were gearing up slower than expected.

Kouba wasn't available Wednesday night to comment on whether that is so.

In November 2006, Wyeth hiked Rouses Point's short-term production and manufacturing of the antidepressant Effexor in response to problems at its plant in Puerto Rico, where other product lines had been transferred. The Food and Drug Administration cited that operation for several violations of good-manufacturing-practice regulations.

Then, Kouba told the Press-Republican that the situation meant no change in the closure timetable at Rouses Point.

The one-year extension at the plant is the biggest news since the announcement in late December 2006 that Wyeth would not be shutting down operations "for the foreseeable future" of its Research Chemical Development Pilot Plant in Rouses Point, which employs about 118.

Rouses Point Mayor George Rivers heard about Wednesday's announcement through the grapevine and pronounced it welcome.

"They're still paying their taxes; they're still using water, and they're still using electricity," he said of Wyeth.

The plant consumes more than 60 percent of power produced by the village and accounts for about 40 percent of the municipality's water production and another 40 percent of wastewater.

"People are still working; that's the biggest thing," Rivers added.

Kouba also said the Rouses Point plant would be hiring about 40 temporary, on-call employees "to support 2007 production demands."

Hearing that, former Wyeth production helper Allisn Blain -- Shana's mother -- felt a stirring of nostalgia.

"There's a part of me that says, If they called you, would you go?'" she said.

As she officially retired in March, that isn't possible, but the Champlain woman worked for the company for many years at a wage that far exceeds that of most other employment in the North Country. When she left last November, she made close to $20 an hour. A newly graduated licensed practical nurse from CV-TEC in Plattsburgh, she'll earn less than $14 to start.

With two daughters employed at Wyeth, Allisn was happy to hear the place would remain open longer.

"But then again, it can leave a lot of people in limbo," she said.

It's difficult, she said from her own experience, to plan a future when the end of a job is up in the air.

With seven years until she could retire at age 62 and not knowing if she'd be laid off before that time, Allisn opted to volunteer for layoff last fall, just in time to start nursing school.

But then Wyeth delayed her group of layoffs, she said, again and again because the company needed the workers.

From September until Nov. 10, Allisn juggled school and full-time work.

As the company promised, most of her schooling was paid for by Wyeth.

"They did let us go," she said, "but they asked for volunteers to stay. (Otherwise) they would have lost so many operators.

"It will be interesting to see how all this works out," Allisn said of the change in closure date.

"I'll go for another 25 years" if the plant should stay open, said Shana. "But I'll take the one, definitely."

smoore@pressrepublican.com