Hawaii Biotech Inc. opened a $3 million laboratory at Dole Cannery this week to continue its research of vaccines that can combat viruses such as Zika, West Nile and Ebola.

The company, which plans to begin clinical trials this year on the first Zika virus vaccine, is considering expanding its workforce in the 11,000-square-foot facility, Hawaii Biotech President and CEO Elliot Parks said Tuesday.

“For good or for bad, this is a huge milestone for us,” he said. “This is an opportunity for us. It makes us very competitive for grants and contracts. Hawaii is the only state in the tropics, and … all of our vaccines are basically tropical or emerging diseases. This is a wonderful place for people who want to work in that area.”

Hawaii Biotech also is developing antitoxin drugs to counter bioterrorism threats like anthrax for the U.S. Department of Defense. Its largest contract — $10 million over four years — is with the DOD, which is scheduled to do a site visit in March. The firm has won $70 million in grants and contracts since its inception in 1982.

The biotech firm, founded by professors at the University of Hawaii, was in Aiea for 33 years before moving to a smaller, temporary facility on Young Street. It has 20 employees, including molecular biologists who are developing the vaccines and chemists who are developing the bio-defense drugs.

The company is investing about $100,000 in new laboratory equipment and hopes a more efficient research and development facility will help speed up the commercialization of its drugs for the public.

“There’s a lot of ways we can see our technology get to patients,” Parks said. “We can license it out to universities, other biotech companies, Big Pharma, or we can develop it ourselves. If we’re going to take our vaccines to market, we typically would look for a partner. We’re certainly open to that. The (World Health Organization) just last week targeted 2020 for the first Zika vaccine on the market, and we’d like to beat that.”