A little over two years ago, Katrina Marshall took a big gamble. She had been working at Artistic Toys & Promotions in Allentown for about 12 years and loved her job. Starting out as a receptionist she was promoted to a number of roles within the company and became a vital part of the process of selling custom promotional stuffed animals to corporations and organizations around the country.

Flexicon Corp. of Bethlehem Township is expanding. The manufacturer of bulk handling equipment for the manufacturing industry has outgrown its current headquarters in Lehigh Valley Industrial Park VI and will move into a 50,000-plus-square-foot space about two doors down from the existing Emrick Boulevard space owned by developer J.G. Petrucci Co.

Victaulic in Easton has named Rick Bucher president and COO.

It was in the early 2000s that the Right to Repair issue started taking hold, said Emma Horst-Martz, campaign associate with PennPIRG, the Pennsylvania branch of the U.S. PIRG, a consumer advocacy organization.

E.T. Browne Drug Co., manufacturer of Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula and Coconut Oil Formula skin and hair care products, said its East Stroudsburg-based manufacturing facility, Hayward Laboratories, has started producing sanitizer for immediate distribution, to address widespread supply shortages in the wake of COVID-19.

OraSure Technologies of Bethlehem said it earned a $710,310 contract from the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop a pan-SARS-coronavirus antigen rapid in-home self-test. The test uses saliva samples and provides results in 20 minutes.

A new online portal to identify the needs of Pennsylvania manufacturers that are, or could, provide products for the COVID-19 pandemic was launched over the weekend by the state Department of Community and Economic Development.

Just a few weeks ago, manufacturers in Pennsylvania faced a hiring crisis with seasoned, skilled employees retiring and not enough young people choosing manufacturing careers to replace them. That dynamic has shifted dramatically in just the past few weeks, said Richard Hobbs, executive director of the Manufacturers Resource Center in the Lehigh Valley.

Harvest Health & Recreation, a Tempe, Arizona–based multi-state cannabis operator, said it closed on the acquisition of Franklin Labs LLC, a subsidiary of CannaPharmacy, for about $25.5 million. The acquisition, payable with $15.5 million in cash and a $10 million promissory note, includes a 46,800-square-foot cultivation and manufacturing/processing facility in Reading.

Julabo USA, a company in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, is among those businesses that’s staying open because it is helping to equip pharmaceutical companies that are working on vaccines, research, and drug therapies to directly combat the COVID-19 pandemic.