PRACS facility in EGF to close

EAST GRAND FORKS, Minn. — A Cetero Research company spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that the North Carolina firm will close its PRACS Institute facility on DeMers Avenue in East Grand Forks by mid-May, laying off employees.

But April Johnson, communications director for the medical research company that has six facilities across the nation, including the PRACS Institute locations in East Grand Forks and Fargo, would not say how many employees will be laid off.

Nor would she confirm that some PRACS employees in Fargo also were told Wednesday they would be laid off.

Nor would she say how many beds the facilities in Fargo and East Grand Forks have.

“We just don’t disclose that type of information,” Johnson said in a telephone interview from North Carolina.

Dr. James D. Carlson, who founded PRACS in Fargo in 1983, and sold it three years ago, expressed anger Wednesday when he learned of the layoffs from employees in Fargo. Despite his role in the company’s founding and the fact that he remains on the board and is a shareholder in the company, Cetero officials never contacted him about the closure and layoffs, Carlson said, and he questioned why it was done and done so quickly and secretively.

Carlson said apparently about 25 to 30 PRACS employees in Fargo were given notice Wednesday, based on what employees told him.

Mike Hellman, a manager in the East Grand Forks PRACS, told the Herald that it employs 35 people full-time and 60 to 80 part-time and has 250 beds for the clinical medical trials used in drug research.

The Fargo PRACS is larger, with a 600-bed facility and a lab, Carlson said. He was told by employees that a PRACS lab in Fargo would be closed, Carlson said.

Johnson would not confirm that, nor that there will be any layoffs in Fargo.

“We will continue to provide our services to our clients at all our other facilities across the company including Fargo, which will remain open and remain our largest facility,” Johnson said.

PRACS pays people to take part in trials and tests related to its research for drug companies, advertising to find test participants.

Johnson said the East Grand Forks’ closing “was related to our clients’ needs and was a business decision. It was a difficult decision.”

She wouldn’t say what Cetero plans to do with the large building on DeMers, put up a decade ago when PRACS opened its East Grand Forks facility.

Stephen J. Lee is a reporter at the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald, which is owned by

Forum Communications Co.

Tags: nd business, grand forks, business, pracs, cetero