Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. said Friday it will build an $11.4 million BioCenter in Logan to manufacture containers used in the life-science research, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

The announcement came shortly after a state board approved a tax rebate of up to $2,735,000 over 10 years to secure the project.

The company, based in Massachusetts, said the BioCenter will produce the containers and related products at its existing Thermo Scientific HyClone Bioprocess product business unit in Logan.

The containers are used for cell-culture applications as well as the production of protein-based drugs and are used in mixing, storage and transportation of bioprocessing fluids and for bioreactors that are used to grow cells, proteins and other biochemically active substances.

"The market outlook for the bioprocessing industry continues to be very bright as there are thousands of biotech products under development," Marijn E. Dekkers, president and chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement. "This investment will allow us to better meet the needs of our customers as they work toward new therapies for treating disease and improving health."

The company said the 37,000-square-foot facility is expected to be completed by the fall of 2008 and will be the first of a three-phase construction plan that will create a 94,000-square-foot BioCenter over the next four years. The facility will replace and expand an existing operation in Logan.

The new facility will have an administration building, sera and liquid-media processing facility, powdered-media facility, warehouse and the existing BPC facility. The initial project is expected to create 75 new jobs, both in production and management functions, with additional jobs created as the facility is expanded, the company said.

Groundbreaking will take place Oct. 9.

The Governor's Office of Economic Development Board on Friday approved the tax rebate for the creation of 196 full-time jobs that are expected to pay an average of more than $30,000 per year, or 45 percent above the Cache County median. The company also will receive free land from the city of Logan valued between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Fisher Scientific acquired HyClone, a Utah State University spinoff, in 2003 and last November merged with Thermo Scientific to form Thermo Fisher Scientific. Its Logan operations currently employ about 400 people.

Publicly traded Thermo Fisher Scientific employs more than 30,000 people worldwide and has annual revenue of more than $9 billion.