Bone growth company grows operations

ALACHUA – A major medical manufacturer is making a move to bring a more efficient office facility to Alachua.

NovaBone Products, a leading developer of orthopedic and dental biomaterials, has begun relocation into a 30,000 square-feet building in Alachua.

“This move will mainly be about building good communications within our operations,” said Rick Davis, director of quality assurance and regulatory affairs for NovaBone. “Furthermore, it will allow us to be speedy and nimble in manufacturing processes.”

The relocation provides significantly more manufacturing space to support the greater than 40 percent sales growth the company has experienced for each of the past four years, said Arthur Wotiz, CEO NovaBone Products.

Moreover, the relocation combines the company’s manufacturing with research and development operations under one roof, greatly improving the process of new product development and introduction, Davis said. The move to the new facility has started and will be completed by the end of the year.

The move to Alachua is something that has been in the works for several years now. The roots of the company have always been in Alachua, despite the headquarters being in Jacksonville, Davis said.

There is currently a 12,000 square-foot facility in Alachua already, Wotiz said. This improvement will be a huge step forward for the company making it possible to continue the growth they have always enjoyed in this area.

NovaBone Products was established in 2002 with a focus on developing bone graft substitutes based on advancements in biomedical engineering that would meet the specialized needs of orthopedic and dental surgeons.

The North Florida Regional Medical Center is just one of the agencies that will see a benefit from the relocation of resources, Wotiz said.

“In addition to meeting the needs of companies in this area, we will also see an impact in the way of jobs,” Wotiz said. “We currently employ around 25 people in Alachua, but that should increase with the larger facility.”

The move will also bring up to eight more scientists to Alachua, Davis said. The biggest impact this type of improvement creates is by joining the research and development aspect of operations with the marketing side of things, Davis said.

“This facility will be built for purpose,” Davis said. “It will give me access to more application and product knowledge now than ever before and that will go a long way to ensuring the quality of our products.”

There will be an open warehouse design that will accommodate the process used to create the bone graft material. “In our field, it is always better to change in a way that will meet the needs of a growing product, than it is to modify a product to accommodate existing desires of the company,” he said.

“In the end, I look forward to being capable of leveraging the expertise of the research and development department and their scientists, in order to understand the needs of our customer better,” he said.

Alachua will be the biggest facility now on a list of operations including Jacksonville, Shanghai and Bangalore. While the majority of the company’s operation will soon be run out of the Alachua building, the headquarters will remain in Jacksonville.

“The president and the financial offices will still be held in the Jacksonville site,” Davis said. “This is an improvement to the research our company can do and the efficiency with which it is done.”

“We have been in Alachua for some time now, so this is more of a consolidation of offices and an improvement of labs,” Wotiz said. “I am more than anything excited for the future and the pride I get from seeing NovaBone continue to grow.”

#     #     #

Email ahart@

alachuatoday.com