Epic Pharma of Queens to rent a Westbury building from drugmaker P&L Development
Exterior of an office and warehouse in Westbury owned by P&L Development, which would be rented to Epic Pharma of Laurelton, Queens. Credit: Danielle Silverman
A Queens-based drugmaker wants to rent another drugmaker’s Westbury office and warehouse, officials said.
Epic Pharma LLC, a manufacturer of generic drugs, would lease 609-2 Cantiague Rock Rd. from the building’s owner, P&L Development LLC, which also produces generic drugs.
Epic would occupy “essentially all of the space” in the 105,000-square-foot facility for “warehouse and distribution operations," along with offices, said P&L president Evan Singer.
An Epic executive didn’t respond to requests for comment last week and on Monday.
P&L used the Cantiague Rock Road building as a corporate office and warehouse through last December. But the family-owned business no longer needs the space because some of its 575 employees in Nassau County work remotely at least part of the week.
"P&L offers employees a hybrid working environment, which lessens the need for such a large corporate office,” Singer said, adding the company has consolidated its operations into other buildings in Westbury and Copiague where manufacturing, packaging and warehousing take place. His father, Mitch Singer, founded P&L with the late Mort Rezack in 1988.
Last month, the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency unanimously authorized P&L to rent the Cantiague Rock Road facility.
The agency granted tax breaks in 2013 for the building and three others owned by P&L, all in Westbury. The incentives end in 2034 and have saved the company at least $1.5 million, including more than $1.2 million off property taxes to date, according to state records.
P&L and Epic do business with each other, and the latter would initially rent the Cantiague Rock Road facility for five years, according to a letter obtained by Newsday from the IDA via the state Freedom of Information Law.
P&L is part of Long Island’s fast-growing pharmaceutical and vitamin industry. The industry employs about 11,500 people, or about 18%, of all factory jobs in Nassau and Suffolk, according to the state Department of Labor.
Together, the nearly 160 drug and vitamin firms had sales of $4.8 billion in 2020, according to a data analysis for Newsday by the Workforce Development Institute in Albany.
Epic has about 150 employees at its 110,000-square-foot factory and office in Laurelton, Queens, based on a report from the business data firm Dun & Bradstreet.
Epic, established in mid-2008, considered relocating to Nassau or New Jersey in 2009 but the New York City Council adopted a resolution making the company eligible for state Empire Zone tax credits. In return, Epic pledged to retain its 171 employees and hire more people, according to news reports at the time.
In 2016, Epic was purchased for $550 million by Humanwell Healthcare Group, a publicly traded life sciences company based in China, and PuraCap Pharmaceutical LLC in New Jersey, according to an announcement. PuraCap also has a research laboratory in Greenvale.
James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.
