It’s Finally Over!

Yes, election day has come and gone.  Change is in the air, my friends (my god, so glad we don’t have to hear McCain say “My friends” again).  So now we can get back to the daily grind and what’s happening in FredCoBio.

For the record, I am going to the Chamber’s Live Here, Work Here celebration tonight at the Weinberg, hope to see you all there.

I got a call last week from SmartCompanyMag that they were launching a new web site.  Check it out, it looks great. And if you look closely, under featured blogs, you’ll see FredCoBio.  My picture and everything.  There isn’t an article (yet?), but links back to the blog.

A couple of big news items to report.  The first one comes via BioRegion News (among others).  It’s a very thorough article and long enough that I don’t want to paste the whole entry here.  In essence, the State commissioned Battelle to conduct a study on Maryland Biotech.  Their primary recommendation is that the State build upon 5 technology platforms, which are already established within the state:

• Biopharmaceuticals: cancer, neurological disorders, infectious diseases, vaccines, cell-based therapies, and gene-based therapies;
• Molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine: cancer, infectious disease, advanced nanotechnology-development, genotyping;
• Contract bioscience research services: biomanufacturing, pre-clinical and clinical research services;
• Bio-based products: algae-based biofuels, nutraceuticals; and
• Biodefense and emerging infectious diseases; bioweapon detection, vaccines, and therapeutics.

These findings were presented to the Maryland Life Science Advisory Board last week.  You can see the whole presentation HERE.

One criticism of the plan is that the results of this survey indicate that Maryland is lagging behind Massacusetts and North Carolina, in contradiction to the Sage report issued last year.  The Sage report determined that Maryland is The Nation’s Bioscience Leader. Close examination of the methods employed yielded one glaring omission from the scope of the study:  there was no weight given to Federally Funded research institutions.  There was some criticism of this oversight by the Board, because how could the NIH, U Md, Hopkins and Ft Detrick be left out as insignificant spectators in the area bioscience scene?  Puzzling, but I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Another item I have to mention, because it hit so close to home.  The GemoneWeb News reports that Invitrogen, ABI to be renamed Life Technologies Post-Merger.  That brings back some memories.  A mistake that just keeps on giving.  Crazy, really, how badly Invitrogen meesed things up 8 years ago.  I find some solice in the fact that this action justifies my belief.  And I am happy that they have moved operations back to Frederick and are growing the business here.  I can’t imagine how much money they are going to have to spend to rebrand themselves Life Technologies?  I just wonder if they’ll bring back the old “Lexus logo” as we used to call it?

And MARK YOUR CALENDARS:  BioBeers has been set for Friday, November 21st @ 4:30-7 PM at the Flying Dog Brewery!!  More details to follow.