Another busy day in the news

I was so caught up with some of the news yesterday, that I missed a whole special section of the business pages in the FNP called Progress 2008.

This section contained features on many local companies we’ve covered in the past: Akonni, FiberCell Systems, SAIC-Frederick, SuperArray and Dynport.

As the Opening “Editorial” suggests:

There may be no more exciting industry than biotechnology in these opening years of the 21st Century.

Maryland has more than 350 biotech companies and Frederick is a growing hub for research, home to nearly 40 biotech firms.

Economic development is targeting this low-impact, high-potential area; our educators are gearing to train the next generation of workers for what is anticipated to be a booming sector.

Among the highlights of the feature on SAIC-Frederick called “Cutting Edge”:

• Science Application International Corp., or SAIC, has been a mainstay of Frederick’s biotech research community since 1972 when President Nixon’s declared the “War on Cancer”
• SAIC-Frederick employs about 1,770 people, and operates on the largest single research contract awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services.
• SAIC-Frederick occupies 68 acres and 116 buildings at Fort Detrick
• Working with about 800 employees of the National Cancer Institute, the company operates from basic research and experimental levels, up to clinical trials and vaccine production (in their new facility off Rt 85 adjacent to the Ballenger Creek waste water treatment plant).
• SAIC-Frederick is currently monitoring 300 clinical trials that are under way all around the world, from Africa to Southeast Asia, and in the United States as well
• The company is also managing test locations at 16 hospitals around the country to deliver the latest in cancer care to rural and underserved urban areas
• In a separate article in today’s FNP, the parent of SAIC-Frederick reported revenues for 2007 of $8.94 billion, up 11 percent from the previous fiscal year

Dynamic DynPort: Headquartered just off U.S. 15, the DVC building covers a total of 60,000 square feet in the small business park, paralleling Thomas Johnson Drive. With over 87,000 employees worldwide, according to senior manager of communications April Finnen, “DVC is a world-class provider of solutions for the development of biopharmaceutical products.” More than specializing in vaccines for biological defense, Finnen said more recently DVC has begun to specialize in chemical defense and emerging infectious diseases.

Don’t forget to check out their current openings HERE. Rumor has it that they’re also looking to hire a number of for paid students internships over the summer! The application deadline is Aprill 11th, so you don’t have much time. I also wanted to give the interns from Hood we have working here get a jump on the competition, so I didn’t let the news out earlier.

FiberCell Doing Well: Since I know the owners pretty well, not much I can add. I know that they are busy this week strumming up business in New England (I’ve heard there are a few decent Biotech & academic institutions up there) and then off to the Left Coast for more Business Development. Rumor has it they’re going to get a big order for some systems from one of those Pharmas in NE. I hope they do. All I know is that John needs to be here tomorrow with me to cut open the three HF systems I have running with my MSC which have (hopefully) differentiated into neurons using placental basement membrane extract as a matrix.

SuperArray: The company has become a thriving biotech firm that sells its products worldwide : So successful, rumor has it, that they’re looking at a brand new, larger facility. SuperArray is home to about 65 employees. Although still a small number in comparison to many other companies, SuperArray has no problem finding business. “Sales are increasing. We are making a name for ourselves,” says Heather Fox-Brashears (yet another former Life Tekker). SuperArray experienced an 85 percent increase in revenue from 2005 to 2006.  I hope to be able to use their Stem Cell products pretty soon, pending my results from this weeks FiberCell collaboration.  I had set up some experiments about a year ago, but I was not able to follow through on it so I owe them a visit.

And finally, Quick Draw about Akonni.   They have been in the news so much lately, I don’t know if there is much more to say about them, other than the fact that they’re doing pretty well, leasing more space and expanding.  Here’s something I didn’t know:  The company was founded in Russia in 1988 by Dr. Andrei Mirzabekov, the director of the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow. The team was brought to the United States in 1995 and the technology’s license was acquired by Akonni in 2002.  They are about 25 people strong, but I look for them to add more pretty soon.

I also wanted to direct you to the North (or is that the West?) with the announcement that Washington County is opening a new incubator in Hagerstown. According to the Herald-Mail, Hagerstown CC “has opened 11 wet labs suitable for biotech research, with $1.3 million from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, Maryland Technology Development Corporation and the Washington County Commissioners”.  Sounds like people have caught on to the success of incubators elsewhere in the state.  Now if they start one in Ocean City…..

Too many topics, too little time

Today, as the weather breaks and the sun warms the ground, there are so many stories coming out from little old Frederick County, I won’t be able to do justice to them all.

In the Frederick News-Post today there are three interesting articles: The Tech Transfer Boon at the Fort, Our Resident Supply of Infected Mosquitos and an infestation of “cRusty crabs” in the Monocacy.

The first article is about The Fort Detrick Technology Transfer Initiative (FDTTI), where start-ups like me have access to technology developed at Ft Detrick. 11 companies have received FDTTI funding, nine of them are from Maryland, four from Frederick, with three from FITCI.

I was very interested about the growth of genetically-modified mosquitoes within Fort Detrick, because I am sure someone will read this and mount a new round of protests about GMO and all of the wide-spread pain and pestilence that is cultivated behind the concertina-wired walls of the Fort. Actually, I found it interesting because we know one of the PI’s at the lab through our daughter’s primary school. They are not really making GMM’s (genetically-modified mosquitoes), not there’s anything wrong with that or that they’d tell us if they were. I’ll bet there are plenty of GM-drosophila (fruit flies), though.

The third story is about the invasion of the Upper Monocacy with “rusty crayfish“, theorized to come form dumped bait buckets. So the DNR would like to ban fishing with crayfish in the Monocacy to prevent further spread of the invaders, which overwhelm the native crawdads and compete with game fish food resources. From the sounds of it, the rusties are much bigger and reddish in hue. Maybe they can be farmed for human consumption?

On to the other news:

Since posts about Jobs seem to popular, I saw a news feed about a Bioscience Career Fair in Bethesda. I’ll just cut and paste the feed:

BioSpace, the world’s leading online bioscience job board and life science career fair company, will host

the BioCapital Career Fair in Bethesda, MD on Thursday, April 17, 2008. The

event will take place at the Bethesda Marriott from 11 am to 4 pm. Life science professionals from across the BioCapital region including

Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., will attend the biotech

job fair to meet in person with leading biotech and pharmaceutical

companies. Candidates will interview for careers with Aerotek Scientific,

Emergent BioSolutions, Lockheed Martin, SAIC-Frederick and many others.

Companies at the event will be hiring to fill clinical research jobs,

science jobs, engineering jobs, pharmaceutical sales jobs, formulation jobs

and a myriad of other opportunities.

The last BioCapital Career Fair, held on October 23, 2007, provided the

employers with over 500 pre-registered job seekers. Before the event

several exhibitors took advantage of the private BioSpace Career Fair

resume database to scout talent and schedule interviews ahead of time.

BioSpace encourages interested career fair candidates to pre-register

for the event at:
http://careers.biospace.com/Jobs/Public/CareerReceptionDetails.aspx?RECEPTION_ID=139

Candidates are required to hold a four year degree in a relevant

discipline and have at least two years of experience in a

bioscience-related field or industry.

The Bethesda Marriott is located at 5151 Pooks Hill Road, Bethesda, Maryland.

And last, but not least, a nice bit of news coming out from ImQuest, on Executive Way. ImQuest BioSciences, Inc. announced today the publication of the results of an important structure- activity relationship study to investigate the efficacy and toxicity of a series of pyrimidinedione analogs against HIV-1 and HIV-2.

Maybe they need to have a Job Board, too!

Tech Awards wrap-up

The Tech Awards last night was a pretty good time. Aside from running into a few people I hadn’t seen in a number of years, I also met a few new people. It’s all about Networking. I was hoping to post a few pictures, but will have to see what I’ve got. I forgot to grab my camera from the house when I left in the morning and made a quick dash into the house over lunch. I ran in the back door, grabbed the camera off the PC in my daughter’s room and right out the front door. Apparently, I left the back gate open and the slider into the back porch open a bit, too. When my wife got home from work she thought someone had broken in. I was just worried about waking up the dogs, because they would have wanted to got outside and get some attention. I didn’t realize until I got to Lynfield and took the camera out that the battery was critically low. Such are the hazards of teenage daughters. I forgot to plug it in last night, so the battery was still drained this morning and I couldn’t download the few pictures I took.

But this is supposed to be a post about the event and not a litany of lame excuses of why I didn’t post any pictures.

I learned that I am a poor prognosticator. The only award winner I guessed correctly was Akonni (Small business of the Year). I was pretty sure about that one, as they’ve made all the right moves. They have a fascinating product, with both military and health care uses, they’ve run the gamut of the various funding organizations and moved into the downtown historic district along Carrol Creek. Plus, they’re growing and hiring people and the new facility is really great.

And so the battle of Frederick last night was won by the IT guys, as both of the other winners were IT companies.

Firm of the year went to Regent Education Incorporated . According to Rick Harris, Executive Director of the Tech Alliance of the Tech Council of Maryland: “This company has revolutionized the way financial aid is analyzed and dispersed in the United States. It has seen growth by more than 300 percent, which is phenomenal, by any standard and their products are truly breakthrough technology. Regent is a model for how to start and grow a business to meet a need.”

Mike Gaver with GTI Federal took the Executive of the Year award. To be honest with you, I am not really sure about the “product” they provide, but can see from their web site that they have contracts with the General Services Administration (GSA), U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), the State of Maryland, DHS, DOE, Navy, the State Department and the NIH to name a few.

There was a final award give to SAIC-Frederick, Inc.. This was the Technology Leadership Award. A lot of times people forget how big and important SAIC really is to Fort Detrick and the county’s biotech community. For example, here are all of their job openings in Frederick:

At Fort Detrick

Geoffrey Way Vaccine Production Facility

Clinical Monitoring Program on Industry Lane

TJ Drive contracts and Admin

Advanced Technology Program on Toll House

Must run.  Maybe some pictures later..

HSRL Goes Bowling

    My neighbor here at FITCI, HSRL Pathology, is moving to a former bowling alley in Thurmont.

I heard this was coming, but didn’t know all of the details until reading an article in today’s FNP.  We may be seeing a lot of change at FITCI in the coming months, as fleadling companies prepare to leave the nest.  My own little gig hasn’t grown to more than a single person operation, with a little help from my friends.  With HSRL leaving and BridgePath Scientific, Advanced Product Enterprises and Integrated Biotherapeutics all bursting at the seams, it looks like FITCI will have some space available, soon.

I also wanted to take a minute to welcome Jon from The Regeneration Station to Frederick County!  He is starting with a local company the first of March.  We had the chance to meet and chat when he came out a couple of weeks ago looking for a place to live.
It is nice to see the incubator concept is working and good luck to everyone moving onward and upward!

Friday: Must post something

It is Friday, so I figured I had to post something. I have been busy fighting equipment at work and goofing around, in general.

So here a re a couple of newsworthy events, from my perspective.

From the Baltimore (and Washington) Business Journal, Montgomery County calls for new biotech, research campus near White Oak.  Having recently acquired about 115 acres for a mere $10MM (or only $87K per acre, that’s almost Frederick County pricing), they have issued an RFP in an attempt to integrate local Biotech with the near-by Federally funded Research Institutions, Universities and Hospitals.

Sounds like a good place to start a new stem cell RegMed lab, if you can stomach the traffic and the housing costs in that area, least you be forced to make to deary commute South on 270 every day!!  The NIH is moving a lot of stuff up to Frederick, but Montgomery County can keep their campus.  They don’t even have a BSL4 facility there nor do they have armed guards patrolling their perimeter.  Must mean the research happening up here is that much better, heh?

And another story I find interesting, reported by GenomeWeb Daily News  as preview to an article coming out in tomorrow’s edition of Science, is that the NIH Chemical Genomics Center, the National Toxicology Program, and the National Center for Computational Toxicology will collaborate under a “memorandum of understanding” to push EPA mandated toxicology studies away from in vivo animal research and to “in vivo and in vitro assays with lower organisms, and computational models for toxicology assessments.”

The EPA’s ToxCast program, launched in 2007, is currently profiling over 300 toxicants, most of which are pesticides.  This is currently done in vivo. In vitro systems have been used in Drug Discovery for a decade and employ rodent, dog, and non-human primate models routinely.

I would think it would be just as easy to make freshwater, North American fish models (not tropical Zebra fish).

I have always found it odd that the EPA dictates you kill a bunch of creatures to prove your product isn’t toxic.

Leaving the Nest

There is a nice article in the FNP today about how incubator companies find it hard to afford Lab space once they move out of the incubator system. I don’t disagree, but the time comes when we all have to leave the nest. Not leaving the nest means you were not very successful. The article cites data provided by a study commissioned by TEDCO, as well as some facts supplied by Mike Dailey in a briefing to County Commissioners in November.

Here is the link to the Executive summary of TEDCO’s study on Maryland incubators’ economic impact is from the TEDCO website: www.marylandtedco.org

Key Data Points Resulting From the Impact Analysis:
Incubator Firms in 2006:

• Employed 14,044 employees in the state (5,374 direct employees and 8,670 indirect employees)
• These jobs contributed $845 million in annual salary and benefits to Maryland households
• Gross state product contributions totaled $1.2 billion
• Increased state output by $2.7 billion per year
• Contributed $104 million in state and local taxes.
Incubators in Maryland:
• 18 technology incubators in operation comprising 453,061 square feet
• 4 proposed technology incubators

Future Implications:

• Maryland has a strong high-tech industry, with over 15,000 establishments employing almost 200,000 in 2006.
• The average annual pay for high-tech jobs is $75,000, more than 60% higher than the statewide average annual wage of $46,000.
• The high-tech industry in Maryland overall has a location quotient of 1.54, indicating that employment in high-tech industries in Maryland is more highly concentrated than in other states in the nation. (An LQ between 0.75 and 1.25 is interpreted to mean that employment is similar to the national average. An LQ above 1.25 indicates concentration).
• The three most concentrated industries are management, scientific, and technical consulting services (LQ = 3.01); computer systems design and related services (LQ = 2.33); and communications equipment manufacturing (LQ =2.06).
• Academic R&D totaled $2.36 billion in 2005. This is the fourth highest in the nation and surpasses North Carolina, Massachusetts and Virginia. (that was mis-quoted in the FNP article)
• There are over 40 research centers in Maryland, including a significant presence of federal labs and prominent university institutes.
• Taken together, these facts provide the state with a strong foundation for additional technology incubator growth.

AT A GLANCE Frederick Innovative Technology Center’s impact to date

> Frederick County Commissioners invested $275,000

> Maryland donated $8.27 for each county dollar spent:

> TEDCO grants totaled $1,625,000

> Maryland DBED grants totaled $650,000

> Each FITCI job worth $7,404 in state and local taxes

> 106 jobs at FITCI worth $784,962 in state and local taxes

> FITCI tenants and graduates received more than $6.5 million in outside investment and more than $6.8 million in government grants

Source: Michael Dailey, executive director, FITCI, briefing to county commissioners, Nov. 20, 2007 (as reported in the Frederick News-Post 1/31/200

I have interviewed Mike already and am awaiting his return of my Blogterview questions.  Hopefully, we’ll have that together soon.

DynPort in the news

I have been procrastinating writing a blog entry about DynPort for a while, but saw an article in the FNP this week that makes another post about DVC almost obligatory.  Aside from their track record of bringing home the bacon in terms of contracting big contracts for vaccine manufacturing management, they made the list of the Top 10 family friendly businesses in Frederick County.

I know quite a few people there, most from my days at Life Technologies (follow this hyperlink to a great article from MdBio  in Sept 2002 about all the businesses the break-up of LTI by Invitrogen created).

I hope to see more of them at the next BioBeers meeting, which I will announce imminently.

And just in case you are wondering, there are plenty of Jobs Posted on their web site, a testament to their success.

FNP Picks a Number, Help Wanted at the Fort

I have to give a lot of credit to the Frederick News-Post. They’ve been running different articles with significant implications to the local Biotech scene the past couple weeks.

Here a couple from today’s on-line edition:

There’s an article about JJ Lin’s growing company, Imagilin. One of the first incubator companies at Hood, they make probiotics to aid in animal digestion and recovery from intestinal distress caused by antibiotics, parvo-virus and eating nasty stuff. I have known and worked with JJ for almost 20 years now, since 1988. He hasn’t aged a bit and I have gone nearly completely gray. Here’s a picture from the FNP:

The article is about a recent trip to Japan and China, where there is potentially a huge market for his products. I wish him luck.

Another article is about how Ft Detrick Can’t find enough people to work there. And Col. Deutsch makes a very valid point is saying:

“And everyone thinks it is all scientists, Ph.Ds. But for each Ph.D, we need 10 support people in administration or maintenance. We will need people to fill all of those spots,” she said.

The article also makes note that the public is invited to a community meeting at Fort Detrick at 7 p.m., Jan. 17 to hear about the developments at the base, meet Maj. Gen. George Weightman, the new commander, and ask questions about traffic, water and other issues.

And last, but not least, yet another article about my friends at Akonni. They are really getting a lot of press lately and doing well.

Follow-up on Good News and Bad News

Over the past couple days, FNP has run a couple a nice articles on both SuperArray and the closing of Kemp.

Follow the links to read the FNP articles.

SuperArray: http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/business/display.htm?StoryID=68423

Kemp: http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/displayUpdate.htm?StoryID=68534

UPDATE 12/7:  FNP added a little more detail in the article this morning:  http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?storyid=68563 

Also, on a more somber and personal note for those who knew him, John Rilling passed away unexpectedly this past weekend while visiting family in Minnesota. I was not able to attend his services today in Rockville, but have been thinking about him and his family today. He was a all around nice guy, an excellent golfer and a valued colleague that is already missed by those who knew him.

Ciao BioElectronics

Frederick’s own BioElectronics Corporation has inked a deal with an Italian Distributor, TSS, to distribute their ActiPatch products. This reports initial inventory acquired by TSS as 10,000 units. At a retail price of between $60 and $100 per unit, that’s a pretty nice deal for BioElectronics.

ActiPatch is a drug-free anti-inflammatory patch with an embedded battery operated microchip that delivers weeks of continuous pulsed therapy for less than a dollar a day. The unique ActiPatch delivery system, using patented technology, provides a cost-effective, patient friendly method to reduce soft tissue pain and swelling

I’m not getting on my soapbox just yet, but I will personally testify to the effectiveness of the ActiPatch. Stick it on at night and the pain is gone in the morning. It is an excellent product.