The Economic Development Corporation of Utah (EDCUtah), the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), and Salt Lake City are pleased to announce that Denali Therapeutics, Inc. plans to open an office in Utah, potentially adding up to 100 new high-paying jobs in the state in the next 10 years. The expansion includes capital expenditures of $40 million.

“Denali Therapeutics will be a great addition to Utah’s growing life science industry,” said Dan Hemmert, GOED’s executive director. “Neurodegenerative diseases have impacted many Utah families, and we wish the company success as they continue to grow and develop medicine for these diseases.”

Denali is a biotechnology company focused on discovering, developing, manufacturing, and ultimately commercializing medicines to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, lysosomal storage diseases, and more. Denali has developed a proprietary drug technology platform to allow for the transportation of drugs across the blood-brain barrier and into the brain.

“At Denali Therapeutics, our purpose is to defeat degeneration. This is an exciting time as our pipeline of potential treatments for neurodegenerative diseases continues to advance and we have a need to build additional capabilities to meet our anticipated development program needs,” said Ryan Watts, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Denali. “After consideration of multiple locations for expanding our footprint, we decided that Utah offers the best overall environment and we look forward to being part of the growing life science community there.”

The GOED Board has approved a post-performance tax credit not to exceed $1,355,894. Each year that Denali Therapeutics meets the criteria in its contract with the state, it will earn a portion of the total tax credit.

“After meeting with Denali leadership, I could not be more excited to hear the news of their expansion to Salt Lake City,” said Erin Mendenhall, Salt Lake City mayor. “The company will play a critical role in expanding the life sciences industry in our community and their work to combat neurodegenerative diseases will be beneficial to the future of global public health. We welcome Denali Therapeutics to ‘Tech Lake City’ and look forward to their innovations and continued success in the future.”

“With patience, seeds can sprout. Denali Therapeutics is a high-growth life sciences company that evaluated several western U.S. metropolitan areas before selecting Salt Lake City for an expansion,” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of EDCUtah. “Utah first got on their radar thanks to a proactive GOED/EDCUtah visit to their Bay Area offices in February 2018. We nurtured the connection since then. This is a win for the Global Strategy & Outreach effort.”

Colby Cooley, vice president of business development, led this project for EDCUtah. For more information on this or other projects, contact him at 801-323-4250, ccooley@edcutah.org

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