IBT is Granted Grant: More info about MedImmune

According to an article in the FNP today, FITCI client and my “lab next door”, Integrated BioTherapeutics (IBT), has won a $4.7MM NIH grant that I knew they were hoping for.  This is good news for IBT and their small staff.  They have 5 people working in the lab now and are looking to “graduate” from the incubator into a new facility.  Rumor has it the move will take them down the road to Montgomery County, but let’s hope that isn’t set in stone, yet.  I count on those guys to attend BioBeers and for an occasional happy hour at the Hops.

Also in the news today, BioRegion News has an article about MedImmune that I found very interesting.  I’ll just cut and paste it from their web site here:

MedImmune Says Biologics Plant Construction on Track, as New Contractor Joins Project

A MedImmune spokesman told Maryland Community Newspapers last week that construction of the company’s new 710,000-square-foot biologics manufacturing facility in Frederick, Md., ison track for occupancy by early 2009, and still within its roughly $250 million budget.

Spokesman Tor Constantino also told the newspaper group it had added a co-general contractor, Fluor of Irving, Tex., to assist the project’s initial general contractor Parsons with ‘‘the scope, the scale and the complexity” of the biologics plant, though Parsons will remain on the project.

The biologics plant broke ground in September 2006 at 636 Research Drive, next to MedImmune’s original facility. The new plant was designed to increase the company’s cell culture production and has been projected to create 225 jobs in support of a $170 million, five-year award from the US Department of Health and Human Services to develop influenza vaccines for pandemic and seasonal purposes.

Other MedImmune notes:

• Coakley & Williams Construction of Gaithersburg, Md., has won a contract to perform interior architectural work for the manufacturing facility. Coakley & Williams previously worked on MedImmune’s 25,000-square-foot pilot lab in Gaithersburg and is under contract to renovate two additional labs.
• MedImmune said it has hired 400 of its 800 planned new employees so far this year, as part of a growth effort that followed its acquisition by British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca last year. MedImmune now has 1,000 employees in Maryland: 775 in Gaithersburg, 225 in Frederick.

I know they have a number of local contractors on-site, including one of our FITCI clients, Meridian Biogroup.  And AeroTek Scientific Staffing in Frederick has the exclusive contract for recruiting talent (per comment) for MedImmune, so send in those resumes soon!