AMRI confronts change, again

“When we started our company in 1998, we studied AMRI,” recalls Greg Reid about American Advanced Organics, a contract research and custom synthesis firm he and other ex-Bristol-Myers Squibb researchers launched in Syracuse, N.Y. AMRI, known formally as Albany Molecular Research Inc., had made a name for itself as a contract research organization. Indeed, its chief executive officer at the time, Thomas E. D’Ambra, was often called the innovator of the contract research organization (CRO) model in pharmaceuticals. “If we had to make a picture of what we thought we would be, we thought in five to 10 years we’d love to be AMRI,” Reid says. The dream became reality two years later when AMRI acquired American Advanced Organics in an effort to bolster its chemical development service offering. Reid claims the Syracuse facility for AMRI, later moving to its headquarters to manage the chemical development division until his departure