Major employer will invest $12.5 million to create 480 new jobs in Columbus

A major employer is expanding its Columbus locations.

Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday that BioTouch, a health care logistics company based in West Haven, Connecticut, will invest $12.5 million to expand its two facilities in Columbus. According to the news release, this investment will create an additional 480 new jobs over the next four years.

BioTouch’s facilities in Columbus are at Corporate Ridge Business Park and Columbus East Industrial Park. Across both facilities, BioTouch has approximately 390 employees, the news release says.

“BioTouch has been proud to call Columbus home since 2005, and our commitment to this community remains strong,” Rob Coyle, CEO of BioTouch, said in the news release. “Expanding in Columbus has been a pivotal chapter in our growth story. The city’s skilled workforce, business-friendly environment, and strategic logistics network have enabled us to scale faster and serve our customers more efficiently. Columbus isn’t just where we operate — it’s where we fulfill our purpose: To touch lives and improve outcomes.”

Construction and hiring for the expansion are already underway. Interested applicants can learn more and apply at biotouchglobaljobs.com.

BioTouch is a health care kitting and logistics company, as stated on their website. Health care kitting is the process of assembling medical devices, supplies, and components into ready-to-use kits. Some examples of health care kits are first aid, surgical procedure and at-home testing kits.

About the jobs offered at BioTouch

According to BioTouch’s job database, the company is hiring a range of roles spanning from entry-level to senior managerial positions. Some of the roles being offered are in quality management, production supervisionand operations control.

Coyle told the Ledger-Enquirer that the access to a large workforce made Columbus a competitive location for the company’s continued investment in the region.

“Having that access to different levels of capability and experience makes [Columbus] very attractive for continued business,” he said.

Coyle also emphasized the importance of the services that BioTouch provides.

“You’re joining an organization that knows it’s critical to be able to supply healthcare kits out into the market, direct to patient, clinic or hospital, to be able to collect a specimen that can help determine if you have an illness or you have an issue like cancer or IBD (Inflammatory bowel disease) or Crohn’s disease,” he said.

About the $12.5 million investment

Coyle also discussed details about how the $12.5 million investment will be used in both facilities. Most of the ongoing construction projects at both facilities are internal changes, such as creating a bigger parking lot for the incoming workforce.

“It’s the fundamental things,” he said.

In addition to staffing and internal construction updates, BioTouch is investing in and implementing artificial intelligence throughout the supply chain.

“We’re calling it kit AI,” Coyle said. “There’s now a camera above [the product cell], and that camera is looking down at the kit. As they build the kit, the artificial intelligence will ensure that it matches and that everything that should go into the kit gets into it.”

AI-powered cameras will be placed above production cells to help with quality control during the kit assembly process, Coyle said. As employees put together kits, this technology will be able to identify the supplies needed in the specific kit.

Kevin Boykin, a BioTouch board member, told the Ledger-Enquirer mistakes in assembling kits can lead to a chain reaction of problems, starting from labs being unable to test samples leading to delays in a patient’s diagnosis. Boykin also said this is only the beginning of AI implementation in the company.

“There’s some real impact to something as simple as the wrong tube going into the wrong box,” he said. “We plan to use AI in other parts of the company, but that’s our introduction into it.”

The beginnings of BioTouch

Boykin founded BioTouch, originally Path-Tec, out of Columbus State University’s Business Incubator program in 2005.

Boykin, a former medical technologist in the Air Force, said the idea for Path-Tec was a combination of his love for technology and a growing number of his clients requesting healthcare kits.

“When I started doing the kits, it really was to pay the rent, but the kits took off,” Boykin said. “I thought that I should focus on the kitting. This was going to be the thing that grows.”

Over the years, Boykin sold parts of Path-Tec to private equity firms, merged Path-Tec with LabLogistics, a healthcare courier company, and acquired four other healthcare logistics companies to expand the brand. ‘BioTouch,’ the umbrella company for these services, was founded in 2023.

“‘Bio’ is about the specimen, and the ‘touch’ part of our name means that we basically touch that sample at every stage until it gets to testing,” Boykin said. “We make sure that doctors and patients have the right products at the right place.”

BioTouch is a global company that sends specimen collection kits to over 100 countries worldwide. In addition to the two Columbus facilities, BioTouch has facilities in Idaho and Ireland, Boykin said.

Boykin gave credit to the partnerships with local and statewide officials for his company’s continued growth in his remarks during Thursday’s news conference.

“It was really through the effort of a lot of the city and the people here who have helped us throughout the years,” Boykin said. “We look forward to great things to come.”

This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 9:00 AM.