Montgomery County officials are considering cash incentives and tax breaks to keep one biotech firm from leaving the county. Meso Scale Diagnostics, a Gaithersburg biotech firm that produces diagnostic tools and employs about 350 people in the county, approached the county threatening to relocate to Frederick County or Northern Virginia, said Steve Silverman, county director of Economic Development. The company has outgrown its current facility and wants to expand into larger office space, which is less expensive elsewhere.
As a result, Silverman and the County Council are scheduled to hold a closed-door meeting Tuesday to discuss financial incentives that would keep the company in the county and possibly ways to help it take over the building the county police soon will vacate at 2350 Research Blvd. in Rockville.
Though Silverman declined to detail the proposed incentives, he did say that any similar deal would include a property tax abatement.
