PLATTSBURGH -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer was in Rouses Point Tuesday to formally announce acquisition of the Wyeth Pharmaceuticals facility, which will save all 800 jobs.

He said the announcement is the culmination of two years of hard work.

"I don't think it's too late in the year to say happy holidays," Spitzer said.

The buyer is Akrimax Pharmaceuticals, a startup pharmaceutical manufacturer headed by Chairman Joseph Krivulka and Vice Chairman Leonard Mazur.

Akrimax closed on the purchase of Wyeth's Rouses Point manufacturing facility on Friday.

Wyeth will lease space in the facility until it can finish transition of its Rouses Point operation to Ireland and Puerto Rico by the end of 2009. Akrimax and Wyeth will cooperate during the transition, with Wyeth continuing to manufacture as Akrimax begins integrating its own products into the facility.

"We've looked at other facilities," Mazur said. "This facility is world class."

Krivulka and Mazur toured the plant Tuesday morning, where they saw a first-class workforce.

"This facility has been open for 70-plus years. It is our intention that it stays open another 70-plus years," Mazur said.

Akrimax plans to acquire additional patents for manufacture in Rouses Point, where it will manufacture its own products and make pharmaceuticals for other companies.

The company has also acquired Wyeth patents associated with its beta-blocking drug Inderal, as well as the contraceptives Ovral and Lo Ovral.

The purchase saves about 800 manufacturing jobs. Krivulka said employee pay and benefits will remain the same.

QUICK START

Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce President Garry Douglas said the announcement is a welcome conclusion to a journey that began in late 2005, when Wyeth announced it would close its Rouses Point plant.

"Those who say we cannot attract manufacturing investment to upstate New York have been proven wrong, while the North Country has once again shown how solidarity and teamwork can help turn bad news into a new opportunity, as our area did when Plattsburgh Air Force Base closed in 1995," he said.