SINK … OR SWIM?
In October 2011, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley announced – to great fanfare – the forthcoming arrival of 707 new jobs (at $70,000 a pop) in Lexington County, S.C.
The company purportedly bringing all of those high-paying positions to the Midlands? Nephron Pharmaceuticals, a company owned by Haley’s friends Bill and Lou Kennedy, which bills itself as the “global leader in generic respiratory medications.”
“It’s another great day in South Carolina,” Haley said at the time. “We celebrate Nephron Pharmaceuticals’ decision to locate its new manufacturing facility in the Midlands and create hundreds of well-paying new jobs. This is a big win for our state.”
FITS was suspicious of this deal from the beginning. In fact, we published a detailed story regarding its questionable financials – and wrote about pay-to-play allegations involving Nephron and the governor. We also busted Haley in yet another lie regarding her connection to the Kennedys.
Everything about the deal seemed shady to us … and we said so.
So … what’s the status of the Nephron project today?
FITS decided to check in with several sources close to the company this week, and the news is not encouraging.
According to the individuals we spoke with, Nephron is facing a host of problems including major financial troubles, high turnover among its senior executives, legal drama associated with several recent terminations, issues with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), delays in production as well as ongoing problems with the quality of South Carolina’s workforce.
“Generally speaking the exact opposite of the Midas touch,” one source told us.
Also, the company’s South Carolina location currently employs only “100 full-time South Carolina” workers. Another twenty-five workers have either been relocated from Nephron’s Orlando, Florida headquarters or are flown up on the company jet “weekly or biweekly.”
That’s a far cry from the jobs Nephron promised, and according to our sources “the SC folks are dropping like flies.”
Over the last three months, Nephron has seen nine of its twenty-five top staffers (or 36 percent of its upper management) leave the company – with others reportedly on their way out. At least one of those departures is allegedly the result of a “hostile work environment,” leading to litigation between the ex-employee and Nephron’s Lou Kennedy.
“(Nephron’s) project here is extremely unstable mainly from a personnel and financial position,” one source familiar with the company’s operations told FITS. “Most people working at the company don’t even have a clue about how close the operation is to changing hands.”
Sources tell FITS Nephron has brought in associates of The Huron Group, a Chicago-based company that helps its clients “improve performance, comply with complex regulations and reduce costs—delivering measurable, sustainable results.”
At Nephron, though, the company’s mission is reportedly to “research assets and find out how much longer the company can stay afloat.
Ouch …
Nephron has also run into trouble with federal regulators.
Last October, the company issued a recall of its Albuterol sulfate inhaler solution (which is scheduled to be manufactured in South Carolina) due to the results of “internal monitoring processes” employed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Our sources say a more recent audit by the FDA of the company’s Orlando facility has turned up even more problems.
Publicly, everything seems to be on the up-and-up with Nephron. The company opened its gleaming multi-million dollar Cayce, S.C. headquarters two months ago – an event attended by Haley.
“You’re looking at the Taj Mahal,” Haley said of the new facility.
The groundbreaking of Nephron’s facility also received fawning coverage from The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, which reported that the company would “approach sterile drug production” by the end of the year and further speculated it would “blow through” its initial projected job totals.
So … who’s telling the truth? Is Nephron’s South Carolina facility still on track to bring hundreds of new, high-paying jobs to Lexington and Richland Counties? Or is the company facing serious challenges that could keep it from achieving its promised job creation?
And what of the extensive taxpayer investment in this company? As well as the products it produces (prior to its announcement, Nephron had unsuccessfully attempted to be placed on the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services’ preferred drug list)?
Count on FITS to continue digging where the mainstream media won’t …
44 comments
“Our sources say a more recent audit by the FDA of the company’s Orlando facility has turned up even more problems.”
Obviously this was caused by South Carolina’s dullard workforce somehow.
Another reason to dissolve the FDA.
Right. The FDA keeps finding problem after problem. Get rid of the FDA and we will not be forced to address any of those problems. Besides the free market will take care of it.
“Get rid of the FDA and we will not be forced to address any of those problems.”
And clearly those problems have harmed their customers, it’s all over the news! Thank Jesus for the FDA!
What? No one’s been hurt as a result of FDA declared problems with their other plant? Oh….
But they could be!!!!! lulz….
I’ve never understood protecting people from things that *might* happen… waste of money, I say.
There’s no firm principle behind where you draw the line…because the principle itself feels good on the surface, it remains unexamined fully as a result of said feelings.
What never gets discussed is who pays for it and how much it would cost to actually be effective even if you have no problem with taking money from people against their will. This is all not withstanding the corruption within the FDA itself.
It’s similar to airport security theater. It makes certain people feel safe, gives crony operators a nice taxpayer check, etc. But in the end, it’s efficacy is doubtful at best and the problem more easily remedied without taking money from people involuntarily. (such as letting the airlines handle security, having a MYOB foreign policy, etc. et al)
Lots of people in the past have suffered from FDA approved drugs, lots of people will suffer in the future as well. Additionally, the FDA has become a corrupt tool of crony pharma that actually helps to limit liability for drugmakers.
The FDA could easily go “bye bye” and it wouldn’t be missed, with neither an increase or decrease in the number of bad drug related deaths IMO.
See? And I thought you were a bat-shit crazy libertarian! It just shows how wrong a person can be about a person.
The FDA keeps finding problem after problem
———
meddling busybodies!
Yep, we can all just go back to 1800s free enterprise and Patent Medicines.
The good old days… First thing I’d do is order a bottle of Laudnum from the Sears catalog.
For me —- it was castor oil and Goody’s powder……
I’m pining for the *really* old days.. when pot, heroin, and ergot of rye were your own medical care… and if you knew the right people, the exit wound would be where the coroner said your enemy was shot.
Of course, water was free then too.
‘the exit wound would be where the coroner said your enemy was shot’ — Max, I’m lost on this one…..???
Goes in the back, comes out the chest.
Euwe, be careful what you wish for. If we didn’t have the FDA, companies would produce and market unsafe drugs without restriction.What would that mean? Simple… if one of my family members were to take the drug in good faith and die (or seriously injured), the only possible recourse would be for the CEO to grow a new hole in his head with which to breathe. I mean this with all sincerity… those agencies are there not only for the protection of the public, but also to safeguard the businessmen from their own greed.
If you get a piece of bad meat and you die from it, and it’s marked “guaranteed” – your estate might be able to collect in a decade or so – if it’s big enough not to be bankrupt by the time the CEO has moved to another country.
That is, if the libertarian arbitrator in charge in your district is on the take, and allows your family to bribe him into starting an “investigation.”
A crooked arbiter wouldn’t be in business very long, just like a restaurant serving bad meat. We had a restaurant here in Blythewood serve up some bad meat a few years ago, they weren’t even in business a couple of weeks after….
Was that a failure of DHEC too?
The notion that the FDA/DHEC or whatever alphabet soup agency can watchdog all these establishments is fool hardy…it would take way more money than they already get and it still wouldn’t be enough.
A crooked arbiter wouldn’t be in business very long
——-
The unicorns would come and get them, just like they got the Hunt Brothers, and those guys selling counterfeit bolts to the airline industry.
(unicorns are all hiding now, because the Republicans and Democrats don’t believe in them)
lol…the world isn’t a perfect place and never will be, but of course, you know that.
I know..in a libertarian world, everyone would magically understand science, and make decisions in their long-term best interest, instead of letting the captains of industry indulge in “get mine before I die, and fuck the future”
We had a restaurant here in Blythewood serve up some bad meat a few
years ago, they weren’t even in business a couple of weeks after….
Ohhhhhhh, I just love anecdotes!
I know of a Chinese restaurant that years ago got consistent C ratings due to improper meat storage. They even got fined for moving a plant in front of the entrance to hide the sticker. Now, eventually they either fixed the problem or, more likely, found a better way to hide it from the inspectors, but to this day they are still open.
Of course, we’re forgetting the notion that a restaurant being allowed to serve bad meat with reckless abandon can result in people dying from food borne illnesses, but hey, can’t make a free market omelet without busting a few unaware rugged individual eggs!
Then there’s things like this, which I’ve posted before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydzIlKJmwV4
If they’re allowed to sell it, they will. If they aren’t required to mark it for what it is, they won’t. If people figure them out, they’ll change their name and keep selling it.
The real fantasy island is thinking that a free market will regulate itself.
“I don’t think following up on on companies that receive tax payer dollars is a good use of tax payer money.”- Some idiot over at the SC Commerce department
“Sources tell FITS Nephron has brought in associates of The Huron Group, a Chicago-based company that helps its clients “improve performance, comply with complex regulations and reduce costs—delivering measurable, sustainable results.”
Translation to the average South Carolina taxpayer:
“improve performance” – how to fire competent employees who are complaining about conditions
“comply with complex regulations” – how to stay one step ahead of the Feds
“reduce costs” – how to shift all liability to receptionist answering phone
“delivering measurable, sustainable results” – how to bleed off as much cash and assets as possible and transfer such to offshore accounts in countries with no extradition agreements.
The top five locations that the Kennedys may consider spending the millions sucked out of South Carolina taxpayers:
Bhutan: For the Spiritual Hermit
Western Sahara: For the Would-Be Bond Villain
Dubai: For the International Playboy
Kazakhstan: For the ‘Star Trek’ Enthusiast
Croatia: For the Outdoorsman
Fucking Cockroaches
Excellent analysis.
You must have been a CEO, analyst or got screwed in the past.
SCPD REAMED FITS!!!!!LMAO…and the hits count is spinning on it. THANK YOU FITS…People love to see you talked about…!!!!!!
SCPD? No clue what this is.
It D@*n sure knows you.
??..Will, make him talk..!!
Next I’ll be sending out those Black Helicopters that communicate though those tin-foil berets so many of you sport….LMAO…
You’re missing out on some spectacular impotent rage on T’s site:
The Columbia-based Cyber-gossip Website FITS News
Pro-Democrat, Liberal-Tarian hopes for SC job loses to damage Haley
The left-leaning gossip Website FITS news
I hope my gracious donation of one visit doesn’t break his hit counter, since it’s already spinning out of control.
Thank you for your support.
If anything, he brought 2 people to FITS.
Southern Committee for Pedophile Democrats, I think.
Southeastern Consortium for Purple Dickheads
and the hit count is spinning out of control on it.
Pretty soon GrandTango will be able to afford cup ramen with all that Google AdSense revenue.
Another confirmed sighting of a confirmed Haley lie!
Can this woman even recognize the truth?
Answer…a Resounding NO! She has such a pathology for lies, she believes them herself and does not recognize them! She believes EVERYTHING she says is true, regardless.
One reaason she shuns debates with French and Ervin, she CANNOT remember what lies she has told!
Nephron’s problems aside, what this episode tells us about Nikki Haley is that she might be good at sales but she is lousy at management. That’s not really the kind of Governor South Carolina needs, is it?
“good at sales but she is lousy at management” Guess that sums up her relationship with Mr. Folks…..
Question for Will. Was she a good fuck? Yes or no.
NO!
Lexington county gave them a bunch of incentives also, I was at the county council meeting when they voted on it.
Nephron just paid off a 250,000,000 mortgage on lexington property
How do you figure that?
Nephron could in it’s wildest dreams payoff a $250 million dollar mortgage in Lexington county. I’ve worked for Nephron and they are running out of dough. Ask their contractors how many weeks they are overdue on their multi million dollar construction draws…..