By Josh Dawsey

When Roche left its sprawling campus in northern New Jersey two years ago, it was part of a broader challenge for the state--filling the cavernous centers that once housed the booming pharmaceutical industry.

On Thursday, officials at Seton Hall University and Hackensack University Medical Center plan to announce they want to fill some of that space with a new medical school, the state's only private one, which they hope to open in 2017.

It would be welcome news for Nutley and neighboring Clifton, which were slammed in 2012 when Roche left, taking more than 1,000 jobs.

"It will help address the needs of the state and the needs of the nation, " said Robert Garrett, chief executive of Hackensack University Medical Center. "There will be a physician shortage in New Jersey that becomes even more acute over the next few years."

Gov. Chris Christie is expected to attend the announcement, which will be held at the Nutley campus. The drug industry's shrinking footprint in New Jersey has left towns like Nutley struggling to fill tax gaps and attract companies to ghost towns of office parks and has played a part in the state's economic challenges.

New Jersey has shed thousands of pharmaceutical jobs over the past two decades, said James Hughes, dean of the public planning and policy school at Rutgers University. He said the state once had about 20% of the country's pharmaceutical jobs but now has about 10%.

About 100 acres will remain unoccupied at the campus, but town officials are likely to have better luck with the prospect of a medical school occupying part of it, say economic development officials.

"It was a big, huge deal when they left," said Luther Engler, who is on the board of Nutley'sChamber of Commerce. "They paid millions in taxes, and every business in town felt it, from the restaurants to the delis to the shops."

For the planned medical school, New Jersey's bust could prove a boon. Laboratories where medicine was once created can be tweaked and used. Many of the facilities need little work because they are already "state-of-the art, pristine buildings," said Mr. Garrett, the hospital's chief executive.

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New Medical School Planned for New Jersey