Roche Establishes Shared Services Center in Costa Rica for North American Units

Swiss biotech firm Roche has established a shared services center in Costa Rica for US$1.5 million that will provide IT services to the company’s pharmaceuticals and diagnostics units in the United States and Canada.

This is Roche’s third global IT shared services center, with the other two located in Budapest, Hungary and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Roche has already staffed the facility, based in Escazú Village, with around 100 people, with company officials saying that they would provide training to all new hires. In fact, the shared services center started its operations last June in a temporary building in Heredia.

“Costa Rica has longstanding experience in the customer service sector, a stable economy, and above all, an excellent talent pool,” said Steve Guise, Global Head of Roche Pharma Informatics.

“We could not imagine a better location to support our teams in the US and Canada, as well as being a source of talent for our broader Latin American IT team, which means a long-term commitment to the country and to its people.”

Expansion of companies like Roche generated more than 10,000 jobs in Costa Rica last year, according to Jorge Sequeira, Director General of CINDE.

Moreover, the services sector has turned out to be ‘one of the main drivers’ of national development, stated Alexander Mora, Minister of Foreign Trade, adding that the sector has allowed Costa Rica to ‘diversify its exports and improve the employability’ of its people. He went on to say that the Swiss firm had employed 250 Costa Ricans.