A company that runs clinical trials for drug makers is laying plans for a recently acquired building in Cypress.
West Coast Clinical Trials LLC, which is based in Costa Mesa, recently spent $9.2 million to buy the former Cypress headquarters of Roger Cleveland Golf Co.
The company plans to turn the 76,000-square-foot building into a space to conduct trials, said Gary Slizgi, West Coast Clinical’s executive vice president of business development.
It’s also considering building a medical testing laboratory to run blood work on trial patients, he said.
Construction is under way and should be done by the first quarter, Slizgi said.
The building already was approved for medical use, said Pinnacle Real Estate’s Vince Kagawan, who represented West Coast Clinical.
Kevin Turner and Pat Remolacio of Colliers International Inc.’s Irvine office represented seller Laro Properties LP of Encino.
The facility was one of the rare industrial buildings to come up for sale in Cypress, Turner said.
West Coast Clinical does various stages of clinical trials and focuses on first phase tests, according to its Web site.
Clients include Alcon Laboratories Inc., the Nestl & #233; SA unit with more than 600 workers in Irvine, and several big drug makers, including Merck & Co., Schering-Plough Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Novartis AG.
The company also conducts what are called “special population studies,” including Japanese-bridging studies designed for the Japan drug market.
Japanese-bridging studies generally involve first-generation volunteers who live in North America.
Kenneth Kim, West Coast Clinical’s chief executive, is a Harvard Medical School graduate known for latex allergy, asthma and sinus research.
In November, West Coast Clinical moved its headquarters to a Costa Mesa facility that includes a 30-bed overnight facility for trial participants.
Besides the overnight facility, Advanced ClinPharm Labs LLC, a sister company, opened a clinical safety laboratory in Costa Mesa.
West Coast Clinical also has a 60-bed facility in Long Beach.
If West Coast Clinical opts for a medical testing lab at the site, it would join several other testing operations in Orange County.
OC’s medical diagnostic laboratory entries include Irvine’s US Labs Inc., now part of Laboratory Corporation of America, and Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute, which has a large facility off the Ortega (74) Highway in San Juan Capistrano.
Quest also has expanded in OC. In May, the company said it was spending $185 million to buy Focus Diagnostics Inc., which was based in Herndon, Va., with a 350-worker laboratory in Cypress. Focus was known for introducing diagnostic tests for Lyme disease, West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.
West Coast Clinical’s Cypress building is near the San Diego (405), San Gabriel River (605) and Garden Grove (22) freeways.
Roger Cleveland Golf, a maker of golf clubs and other products, had used the building as its headquarters for 10 years. It was built in 1989, according to CoStar Group Inc., a real estate research service.
Quiksilver Inc., the Huntington Beach-based surfwear maker, acquired Roger Cleveland Golf last year through its buy of France’s Skis Rossignol SA.
Roger Cleveland Golf outgrew the office and manufacturing plant and moved to Huntington Beach in February, when its lease at the Cypress facility expired.
