GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Thortex Building Nearing Completion

PORTLAND-Viper Technologies LLC (dba Thortex) will relocate its orthopedic implant manufacturing operation to Portland in November. The company will move from 24,000-sf of leased space in Clackamas to 31,500-sf of owned space in the Airport Way industrial area. Company president David Walker announced the move last year, when he tied up a 2.7-acre parcel at the corner of Northeast 150th Court and Northeast Mason Street that was owned by TriState Construction of Bellevue, WA. At the time, he had 84 employees and was “bulging at the seams” in Clackamas. Walker tells GlobeSt.com his company now has double that number of employees and will be running multiple shifts at the new facility to keep up with demand.”We blew up,” he says. “We landed some very significant contracts and expect the company will continue to grow like that.”Walker’s company makes various orthopedic implants, such as hips and knees, but its niche is in porous coating the products, which helps real bone fuse with the implant. “We’re not even on the radar screen as far as manufacturing implants,” Walker told GlobeSt.com last fall. “But we probably have 40% of the market for porous coating; it’s pretty difficult technology and there are only a couple of other players out there.”Though the new building will be only 6,000 sf larger, Walker says it will seem much larger because he will be able to create a much more efficient layout than exists at the leased building in Clackamas, which is broken into seven bays separated by walls. Brad Fowler of Fowler & Co. has been overseeing construction of the new building. Key Way Corp. is the general contractor. The Portland Development Commission is supporting Thortex’s move with a $240,000 loan that may be forgiven if the company meets certain hiring and density requirements, which it appears already have been met. In addition, based on the company’s investment in its new building, it will receive up to an additional $130,000 in grant money, a city official tells GlobeSt.com.