Start-Up NY: 2 biotech firms to locate at Farmingdale State
The vacant Broad Hollow Bioscience Park business incubator at Farmingdale State College is to be used by START-UP NY for tech firms. This is the building on Oct. 21, 2014. Credit: Barry Sloan
Two Huntington-based technology startups have been accepted into Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s Start-Up NY tax-free zones program, officials said.
ProtiFi LLC and Haystack Diagnostics LLC will be moving to the zone at the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park on the campus of Farmingdale State College.
As part of Start-Up NY, the businesses will pay no state and local taxes for up to 10 years and their new employees will pay no state income taxes for as long as 10 years.
ProtiFi and Haystack bring to three the number of Start-Up NY participants at Farmingdale State.
They also provide a needed boost to the bioscience park, which has been trying to attract tenants to space vacated by drugmaker OSI Pharmaceuticals when it moved to Illinois in 2013.
“We are currently in the process of negotiating agreements with both companies” to move to campus, said Greg Blyskal, the park director.
Start-Up NY, which Cuomo launched in 2014, has struggled on Long Island.
A Newsday analysis in July found that 15 of 28 local participants had withdrawn or been removed from the program. The Island’s loss rate of 54 percent is more than double the statewide loss rate of 24 percent, and the second highest among the state’s 10 regions.
Of the new participants, Haystack will invest the most: $550,000 over five years for equipment. It has pledged to create two jobs.
The company is developing a technology used to detect cancer and other diseases.
The other participant, ProtiFi, makes preparation solutions used in the study of proteins. The business plans to invest $140,000 over five years and to create two jobs.
Cuomo’s economic development czar Howard Zemsky said the purpose of Start-Up NY is to increase employment “in dynamic, innovative industries while generating millions in revenue for the local economy.”
