Bioscience talent recruiter moves HQ to Fishers, expands

A expanding employee recruitment upstart has moved to Fishers to tap into the suburb’s burgeoning life-science economic corridor.

Harba Solutions will move into an office at 12 Municipal Drive, behind City Hall in the Flexware Innovation Building.

Founded in 2021 by southern Indiana native Wade Franchville, Harba has 12 employees but expects to grow to 40 by the end of 2023.

The company signs contracts with bio-science firms to find specialized employees such as microbiologists by maintaining a database and using a variety of job boards.

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Harba is working with 50 companies around the nation and several in Hamilton County, including Curium Pharma in Noblesville and INCOG BioPharma Services in Fishers.

“We expect to place 300 workers next year,” Franchville said.

Franchville worked 12 years as a recruiter for other companies before deciding to start his own business.

“I put a business plan together and I was approached by a venture capitalist,” he said.

The investment firm, Tempting Ventures, of England, is a 50% partner.

“Harba offer a unique proposition to a growing market and we've seen that they can consistently deliver to their clients and exceed the expectations of their candidates,” Tempting Ventures CEO Ryan Cleland-Bogle said in a news release.

In its first year Harba outgrew its office space at 8888 Keystone Crossing, Indianapolis, and Franchville looked to Fishers because of the life-science firms moving there.

There are advantages to being physically close companies with which it contracts, he said.

“We don’t want to be this company that operates in the dark,” said Franchville, who lives in Carmel. “We want to be involved in the community.”

Fishers has attracted several life-science companies in the past few years — mostly to its Life Science & Innovation Park near 126th Street and Cumberland Road — that are building large office, research, production and distribution plants.

Among the most prominent are:

List Bio, a subsidiary of South Korea-based Genome & Company, which makes drugs for the last stages of clinical trials and commercial use.

The Stevanato Group, an Italian firm that make glass vials and syringes.

INCOG BioPharma Services, which makes injectable pharmaceuticals.

Genezen Labs, a production contractor for gene and cell therapy.

In addition, Telix Americas, which specializes in precision radiation treatments, will move into the Crew Carwash corporate office building on 116th Street east of Interstate 69.

Noblesville, too, has become a hub for life-science corporations and has committed to building several industrial buildings and designated an area on 141st Street the Innovation Mile.

Franchville said all the medical-science companies moving into Hamilton County will increase competition for skilled employees and the challenge of finding them.

“We don’t have enough talent locally to staff them all so we will have to look to recruit on the coasts,” he said. “Retaining them is also important.”

Experts said Indiana’s central location and road transportation system are enticing to the companies. Central Indiana also has a sizable built-in talent pool because its home to major pharmaceutical companies and medical suppliers like Lilly and Roche Diagnostics, and research hospitals such as IU Health.

Franchville said Harba tries to sell job candidates on Hamilton County’s high standard of living and relatively low taxes and cost of living.

“Someone living and working in Boston (Mass.) might be making a lot of money but the cost of living is also higher so they might be willing to relocate,” he said.

Once an employee is recruited it has an exponential impact because they can help convince other former colleagues to make the move, too, Franchville said,

“It makes it that much easier to influence others,” he said.

all IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at john.tuohy@indystar.com and follow on Twitter and Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bioscience talent recruiter moves HQ to Fishers