Homeland Security lab at Fort Detrick 60 percent complete

There was a good article published in yesterday’s FNP about progress at Ft Detrick’s NIBC project. It was actually a merger between on posted the day before about the MD Biotech Investment Tax Credit: worth the Effort written by Jason Balog of Miles & Stockbridge. I have something to say about both.

With regard to the Tax Credit, let me relay my experience from attempting to obtain this credit last year. As the writer points out

“Although Maryland has some of the best programs in the country to assist start-up companies, most early stage companies are funded through the investment of the founders, their friends and families, and private individual investors known as “angels.” The Biotechnology Tax Credit was passed with the specific intention of encouraging this type of investment and in turn encouraging the growth of an industry.”

My application, despite numerous phone calls and two separate trips to Inner Harbor/Downtown Baltimore to hand deliver items that were not even specified as being necessary nor obvious in the application process, was reject on the basis that my company was not an “ongoing concern”. I think that was legalese for saying I was not really up and running and had no revenue on the books at this point in time, although i was paying rent at FITCI and making products and providing services. I thought that maybe I could catch a break and recover a bit of the $80-100,000 of my money (my family’s money) I was going to be investing to start my business. Not an ongoing concern.

You know what’s really funny, my partner at Advanced Product Enterprises, despite being in operation for 2 years at the time and generating a good amount of revenue, got the same rejection letter.

So in our case, the attempt to get the tax credit I wasted about $100 in fees associated with the application and lost at least 40 hours of productivity filling out the forms and delivering the goods. Clearly, not worth the effort. I wonder who got all of the money? I’ll have to look into that.

In the other part of the article, I attended the AFCEA luncheon on Jan 15th, featuring Michael Jewett, Chief, Integrated Planning Office and Program Manager, National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC) at Ft. Detrick. He gave an excellent overview of the program, the building etc. He even showed an interactive Quicktime movie that allowed you to take a virtual tour of the BSL4 facilities. I believe that this should be available somewhere through freedom of information act, but I was not able to find it. I was able to find this overview, which is very similar to a presentation at AFCEA a couple months ago.

Just a reminder about AFCEA Frederick, if you are not familiar. The Frederick Chapter is based on getting more information out about what kinds of programs and resources are available through the Federal Government Agencies at Ft Detrick and it’s based primarily around the Biological nature of the businesses. There is a lunch Seminar on the third Tuesday of every month, and so far the seminars have been interesting and very informative. That food isn’t bad either, but they could use some work on their web site. I think in the future they are going to make all of the presentations available on-line.