From Washington County to Mumbai

I just saw a breaking news story that AstraZeneca, owner of FredCo’s MedImmune, has “outsourced” their entire IT operation to an Indian firm Infosys in Mumbai (Bombay).  I wonder if this will have any impact on MedImmune’s Maryland Operations?  We’ll see how serious AZ is about making MedImmune a part of the fold, I am afraid.

According to the AP release  “Under the agreement, Infosys will deliver application maintenance services to AstraZeneca’s global operations in areas including manufacturing, supply chain, finance, and human resources.”  If anyone on the ground in Frederick hears anything, please let me know.

NBACC Building at Ft Detrick Under construction

As promised, The Hagerstown Herald-Mail has published two stories today.  Interestingly, they are more about how dependant WashCoBio is on FredCoBio, in particular, Ft Detrick. The first article is about a number of Washington County businesses doing business at the Fort. Although not entirely Biotech focused, interesting nonetheless.   There are a couple interviews/quotes from Marie Keegin (Apparently, based on e-mail I got Sunday, the retired Exec Director of the Ft Detrick Alliance) and FITCI Exec Director Mike Dailey.
I like this quote, in particular:

..in fiscal 2008, one of the largest organizations at Detrick — the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) — awarded $3.4 billion in contracts, grants and modifications, said Jerome K. Maultsby, associate director of its Office of Small Business Programs.Of that, nearly $129 million went to businesses in Frederick city and county, Maultsby said.

Because of the jobs such contracts create, Keegin said, Detrick’s work generates approximately “half a billion dollars in local salaries and subcontracts” a year.

Or the quote from George Lewis I have heard him recite many times “I often say, if they (Detrick) could pay off in $2 bills, they’d start showing up in grocery stores, in churches … All of a sudden, people would realize how much this means to our area.” So true.

The second story is an interview, primarily, with Col. Robinson. She provides a number of interesting vital statistics that are sometimes hard to find.  For example:

The post covers 1,127 acres — 68 of them owned by the National Cancer Institute but ringed by the fort — inside Frederick city.

In all, there are 8,100 employees, including hundreds of scientists and about 1,300 military personnel, working in more than 40 agencies. Most of them do medical research. Some are in strategic satellite communications and other military support functions.

Four U.S. Cabinet-level departments are at Detrick and a fifth is coming:

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is represented by two agencies, including the National Cancer Institute, which has about 3,000 employees working in about 100 buildings at Detrick.

• The U.S. Department of Defense has several agencies at the post. They include the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, which together have 2,300 employees at Detrick.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture employs about 50 workers at the Agricultural Research Service’s Foreign Disease Weed Science Research Unit. In its Biological Safety Level 3 laboratories, it studies foreign crop diseases “in hopes that we can develop measures that farmers can use when they (these diseases) come to our shores,” said Dr. Douglas Luster, research leader.

Part of this work is to develop “resistance genes” that can be bred into plants to fend off disease, he said.

Luster’s teams also are researching biological control of weeds, “trying to use one organism to control another, instead of using chemicals. It’s the more green, environmentally sustainable approach. We try to use plant pathogens — the microbes that attack weeds — to control weeds” without harming other plants, Luster said.

• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently dedicated its National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center at Detrick. When the center opens next spring, its 140 scientists and technicians are to give the government new tools for predicting biological attacks and identifying those who commit bio-terror incidents and other so-called bio-crimes.

• The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs plans to build a Veterans Administration clinic at Detrick next year. Detrick spokesman Chuck Gordon said he doesn’t know how many employees it will have.

To understand the scope of what’s to come, you have more data:

“By the middle fall of 2009, I expect to have construction of or expansion of about seven buildings going on all at the same time,” Robinson said.

She said the nearly $1 billion in work that is to be done includes:

• Construction, now under way, on a building for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

• An expansion, already begun, of a building used by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

• Construction, due to be completed in January, of the Defense Medical Logistics Center.

• Construction, already under way, of the Armed Forces Reserve Center.

• Construction, not yet begun, of the Veterans Administration Community Based Outpatient Clinic.

• Construction of the Navy Medical Research Center, probably starting next year.

Gordon said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is coming, too. But he said he doesn’t know yet whether it will move into an existing building or erect a new one.

Another facility that’s to be built, with private funding, is the Milwaukee Industry for the Blind Supply Store, which sells office and other supplies to the post.

Robinson said many other contracts remain to be awarded.

“I anticipate by the end of next summer, I will have 2,000 to 2,500 construction workers on base every day, with 2,000 cars,” she said.

And, when the agencies move into the new buildings, they will be hiring about 1,425 people, she said.

If Maryland economic development officials are correct, the additional facilities will need supplies and contract help from private companies, leading to “3,500 additional support jobs that are needed outside the base,” she said.