Again in August, serial entrepreneur Alex Lucio didn’t have a lot to point out, but, for Guarantee Infusions, his grand new medical-supply manufacturing enterprise in Bartow, a metropolis of about 20,000 folks in Polk County.

An indication studying “Future House of Guarantee Infusions” stood in entrance of an empty discipline again then. A number of months later, a chain-link fence has gone up and metal girders are stacked alongside transport containers stuffed with home windows, doorways and different constructing supplies. In the course of the sector sits a RV Lucio makes use of as an workplace.

“We hope to have the build up by March,” Lucio says. “That may give us a inexperienced gentle for the equipment. I can’t have equipment arriving till there’s a constructing. All the things’s on order, so it could possibly transfer quick as soon as we get 4 partitions up.”

When it’s totally up and working, which Lucio hopes will probably be in September 2023, the $20 million, 60,000-square-foot Guarantee Infusions facility will manufacture much-needed intravenous fluid luggage, a product of crucial significance to hospitals worldwide. The corporate will focus on 4 IV fluids: sterile water, sodium chloride, dextrose and Ringer’s lactate answer, which has similarities to saline and can be utilized to deal with a spread of problems, together with dehydration and low blood strain.

“When you concentrate on manufacturing prescription drugs, what you find yourself having is a monster pharmacy,” Lucio says. “The one distinction between us and a pharmacy is that pharmacies make a dose for a person, and we’re doing it 5,000 gallons at a time, including components with big drums. Aside from that, it’s the identical.”

Lucio is not any stranger to mass manufacture of medical gadgets and provides, and he’s drawing on expertise on the earlier firm he based, Winter Haven-based 3B Medical, which makes oxygen and air flow gadgets, in addition to merchandise that battle infections. He’s additionally drawing on funds from traders who supported 3B Medical — a $100 million enterprise when Lucio offered it in 2020 to React Well being.

With Guarantee Infusions, nonetheless, Lucio is studying each entrepreneurial enterprise, even in a well-recognized business, is completely different.

“I believed the simplest half could be to place the build up,” he says, “and the laborious half could be on the manufacturing facet. However the degree of complexity to place up a constructing — the whole lot from water drainage to making an attempt to get utilities dropped at the positioning … that is my first time making an attempt to place up a facility, however I didn’t anticipate the delays on the development facet.”

The challenge’s foremost impediment, Lucio says, is the dearth of a concrete slab. As soon as the inspiration is poured, progress ought to come quick and livid. A delay resulted from native officers’ considerations about drainage and runoff — fairly easy stuff, however Lucio, being new to growth and building, needed to play catch up.

“One of many belongings you don’t take into consideration is what occurs to water on a 60,000-square-foot roof,” he says. “Oh yeah, runoff. And the place does that runoff go? That turned a slowdown, as a result of we needed to do a research on the land and the place the water would drain. So now we’re going to increase out a retention pond.”

He provides, “They’re asking for little or no, but when I had put up a industrial constructing earlier than, I’d have anticipated this.”

Lucio doesn’t appear too fazed by the lull in progress. “This complete challenge, it’s all prefab buildings,” he says. “As soon as the concrete pours, it’s like an erector set. You’ll be able to actually put up a constructing in six to eight weeks.”

He’s additionally maintaining his eye on the long-term objective: an organization that may convey greater than 100 jobs to Bartow and disrupt an business dominated by two main gamers: Baxter Worldwide Inc. and B. Braun Medical Inc. 

“We’re distinctive within the sense that different IV producers in america, they make product, they ship it out for sterilization after which they get it again. That is a three- to four-week cycle. We’re sterilizing on web site.”

He provides, “We’ll be the one producer that may go from manufacturing to out the door the identical day. Relating to stock administration, hospitals desire a each day transport schedule, and we will keep that. In a scarcity surroundings, that’s an enormous benefit.”