Leaving the Nest

A feature article in yesterday’s Gazette is about a number of companies leaving the Incubator known as FITCI to start their own empires.  Most of these I have already blogged about, but some new news in the story.

Tom Fedor/The Gazette Maureen Gearheart of Histo-Scientific Research Laboratories digitizes bone imagery in the company's lab at the Frederick County incubator. The company is one of a half-dozen graduating from the facility.

The new graduates are Integrated BioTherapeutics Inc., Imagilin Technology, Cybrdi Inc., APE-BridgePath, Histo-Scientific Research Laboratories Inc. and ChromoTrax.

IBT was the first to depart the incubator, moving (sadly) to Montgomery County in June.  They had momentum from the start, winning TEDCO funding and then an SBIR grant.  Javad also had some good contacts from his work at USAMRIID, pictured below with my old boss Paul Silber, receiving the Incubator Company of the Year Award (in June).

My old friend JJ Lin (by “old” I mean I have known JJ for almost 20 years now. Come to think of it, that would make him and old man by now) and Imagilin are moving from FITCI@Hood to Potomac (another one moving to Montgomery County).

Larry Liu and Cybrdi are in the process of setting up shop in Gaithersburg.  I actually had a meeting with him ealry this week to discuss some potential collaborations.

I have been working closely with Joe & Patrick at APE-BridgePath for the past two years.  They have been developing their business while renting warehouse space out by the airport and sharing space at Akonni to refurbish equipment.  Leveraging the proceeds of a couple nice CRO contracts for recombinant protein production and a installing refurbished lab equipment at the new Lentigen facility, they are going to consolidate into a single facility here in Frederick.  Bhavesh and Dana (pictured on right) may actually have enough room to stay out of my space, for a change.  Perhaps we’ll see the ribbon cutting ceremony in the paper sometime this fall?

HSRL bought an old bowling alley in Thurmont and are awaiting the conversion into a histology laboratory.  Here at FITCI, they’re primarily making the parrafin embedded slides.  You can tell because there is a trail of wax between their two labs thats permeated the carpet.  All that wax is a much better fit for a bowling alley than our carpeted halls.

The article also says that Chromotrax may be moving in with APE-BP this fall.  I knew they were working on a project with DNA FISH probes and had recieved some funding, so I guess it was inevitable that they’d be leaving the nest.

So FITCI is poised for a turnover of the labs, both at Monocacy (where I am) and at Hood.  There has been a steady flow of people in our facility looking at space, and a few new faces occupying offices already.  Should be an interesting fall season for Frederick County Biotech!