Medical device manufacturer Medrad Inc. -- one of the region's fastest growing companies -- will build a $45 million plant in Butler County that is expected to employ 500 in five years.

Medrad, based in Indiana Township, will use the 120,000-square-foot facility to double its capacity for manufacturing sterile disposable products used to inject contrast agents during diagnostic imaging tests. The company has ridden a wave of success in recent years as the use of diagnostic imaging exams has grown dramatically in health care.

John P. Friel, Medrad's president, said yesterday that the company now manufactures about 20 million sterile disposable products at its Indiana Township facility each year. Those products consist primarily of high-pressure, large-volume syringes and injection systems, including specialty tubing.

Medrad also makes the machines that inject contrast agents during such diagnostic imaging exams as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) and angiography, and also services the hardware. In its niche, the company boasts a worldwide market share of about 70 percent.

Gov. Ed Rendell, who joined Mr. Friel at the news conference, said Pennsylvania agreed to provide $4.4 million in loans, grants and tax credits to lure Medrad to the Victory Road Business Park in nearby Clinton Township, Butler County.

The state offered incentives, the governor said, because it had to compete against other states and countries that were trying to land the Medrad project. "We put $4.4 million toward this effort," Mr. Rendell said. "With that, we leveraged $40 million in private sector investment."

Design of the new facility will begin this month, with operations expected to begin late in 2007.

About 100 new employees will be needed initially, with 500 expected by 2011. That's in addition to the 1,100 the company already employs in the Pittsburgh area and nearly 1,500 worldwide.

The 20-acre site for the new facility is part of the 350-acre Victory Road development. Once a U.S. Steel sintering plant, the brownfield site required environmental remediation, and now is one of several Keystone Opportunity Zones in the state, offering tax incentives to businesses that locate there and create jobs.

Yesterday's announcement was the second time in less than a year that Medrad has made construction news in the region.

In November, the company announced it would build a new corporate headquarters in Marshall at the Tech 21 Research Park. It also built a 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in 2002 at RIDC Park in Blawnox, where it also operates a second building.

The company, which employed about 600 locally and 700 worldwide when it was purchased in 1995 by German pharmaceutical giant Schering AG, has seen its sales double the last five years and more than quadruple the last 10 years.

Its sales rose 20 percent last year to $411 million, marking the 10th straight year sales have met or exceeded its target of 15 percent annual revenue growth.

The company does not report profits for the local operation. But Medrad last year accounted for about 6 percent of total revenue at its parent company, which earned $733 million on revenue $6.3 billion in 2005.