Summer 2005  

Courtesy of www.BioIndustrySouth.com

QUIZ

This quarter's Bio Quiz is unusual, yet appropriate considering the timing of our August 2005 launch of www.BioIndustrySouth.com. In 2001, we added a section in Southern Business & Development titled BiotechSouth. At the time it was impossible to ignore the predictions by economists that the life sciences industry would grow by leaps and bounds. Problem was, there was very little news to print in 2001 about the bio industry in the South. In fact, we struggled to find enough copy to fill a single page. Trisha Ostrowski is the editor of this section profiling news of the biotech industry in the South and she is also the editor of our new Web site www.BioIndustrySouth.com. The quiz is, this section has now grown to four pages in the magazine. However, how many pages of bio news derived just from the summer quarter did she cut (those edited items can be found on BioIndustrySouth.com) that are not published here?

(a) 18 (b) 29 (c) 43 (d) 77

(Scroll down for answer)

Alabama

Alabama Helps Biotech Research Center Establish in Huntsville

Huntsville is launching into biotechnology research with an $80 million investment that is expected to generate as many as 900 jobs. Gov. Bob Riley announced as much as $50 million in tax breaks and incentives to help private firm Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology form the new research center. Hudson-Alpha was created in 2004 by the founder of Research Genetics and the founder of Adtran Corp. The project will also include other investors.

UAB was named as one of four institutions that will make up a $300 million center created to facilitate the search for an AIDS vaccine. Called the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology, CHAVI, the initiative is a major collaboration. In total, about 25 AIDS researchers at UAB will work with CHAVI.

Birmingham’s Southern Research Institute (SRI) is forming a for-profit subsidiary to license and manage new products as part of a strategy to become more self-sustaining. The management company will outsource trial management and other expertise needed to develop drugs, according to the institute’s business development vice president.

Auburn University Nearly Ready to Break Ground on Research Park

Groundbreaking for Auburn University’s research park is slated for this fall and the university is making final modifications to a master plan for placement of the first two buildings, parking areas, and park entry features. In addition to providing space for companies that utilize Auburn’s technologies and researchers, the first phase of construction will contain incubator space for start-up companies formed to commercialize Auburn research developments, materials, products, and processes. Occupancy of the new park is slated for late 2006.

Wilmax Clinical Research Inc. has chosen Mobile’s Springhill Medical Center complex for its corporate headquarters. Wilmax, which will create 20 new jobs in the area, identifies, enlists, contracts for, and manages clinical trials of new drugs, devices and diagnostics for clinical sites in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, California, and Texas. Currently the company is conducting more than 14 clinical trials in five therapeutic areas including orthopedics, gastroenterology, oncology, OB/GYN and cardiology for pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Glaxo-Smith Kline and Eli Lilly, among others.

Florida

University of Central Florida Tops $100 Million in Research Funding

For the first time, Orlando’s University of Central Florida has topped the $100 million milestone in research funding, gaining a record $103.6 million in 2004-05. Topping the list of funding dollars awarded were researchers in engineering, education and optics. The university says expansions of nanoscience and biomedical sciences programs also helped to attract more research dollars.

Palm Beach County Approves $3 Million for Second Temporary Scripps Building

Palm Beach County Commissioners voted unanimously to contribute $3 million toward the $15 million cost of a second temporary building for the Scripps Research Institute on Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU’s) Jupiter campus. The university would have to repay the county for $12 million of the total $15 million price tag. Construction on the new 33,000 square-foot Scripps building is to be completed in July 2006. It will house an additional 100 Scripps employees, enabling the institute to continue hiring top-rated scientists and bringing them to the area. FAU plans to use both lab buildings once Scripps moves out.

A grant from the National Institutes of Health is the first to fund activities at both the Scripps Research Institute in California and Scripps Florida, with approximately $3 million of the funding going to the Florida site. The grant will help establish The Scripps Research Institute Molecular Screening Center. The pilot program will work to discover small molecule tools for translating basic biomedical discoveries more quickly into medically relevant applications. The program will mark the first time that this type of work has been done in the public/non-profit sector. Previously, it has been completed only by pharmaceutical companies.

Several economic development groups in Florida have joined forces to conduct a study of the state’s life sciences industry. The effort is being led by Enterprise Florida Inc., the state’s economic development agency, and is being supported by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council and Workforce Florida, Inc. Cornerstone, the regional economic development initiative of Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce, is also participating. The study, known as “The Life Sciences Roadmap,” will begin in July with results expected within one year. The economic think tank The Milken Institute is performing the study with the end goal of developing a strategic plan for growth.

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals has chosen to open its vaccine manufacturing plant in South Florida, moving the company one important step closer to getting a vaccine to market that could save thousands of lives by preventing hospital-born staph infections. Nabi’s new $20 million, 12,000-square-foot vaccine manufacturing facility is being built in the company’s Boca Raton headquarters. The plant could eventually support 100 workers if the company’s main vaccine StaphVax is FDA approved and commercially successful.

Construction is underway on the Poinciana Biopharmaceutical Park in Liberty City, Florida. The centerpiece of the new park will be the headquarters of MediVector Biopharmaceutical Centers, including training and manufacturing faculties. The ground floor of the center will also house a clinic providing health care services to area residents and clinical rotations for students. The MediVector biopharmaceutical complex at Poinciana, as the project is termed, is scheduled to open in September 2006 and projections estimate it will create more than 1,500 jobs within five years.

Teva to Buy Miami-based Ivax for $7.4B

A pharmaceutical company based in Israel is buying Ivax Corp., a Miami-based drug maker that is one of the larger companies based in South Florida. Bringing the companies together, according to Teva’s CEO, will enhance their leadership position in the global generic industry. If the transaction closes, Teva will generate more than $7 billion in sales and will operate in more than 50 countries employing about 25,000 people.

CB Richard Ellis to Market Sites Near Scripps

Real estate company CB Richard Ellis has been given responsibility to market phase one of the county-owned biotech park slated to surround the Scripps Research Institute. The initial phase will be a horseshoe surrounding the 100-acre site that will house Scripps. The total property is 1,920 acres west of Palm Beach. At this point, at least 150 companies occupy 5.5 million square feet of biotech facilities in South Florida.

NeoRx Becomes First Partner for Scripps Florida

Scripps Florida has officially entered into its first collaboration with NeoRx, a cancer therapeutics development firm based on the west coast. Scripps work with Seattle-based NeoRx Corp. will focus on discovering novel, small-molecule, multi-targeted, protein kinase inhibitors as therapeutic agents, including cancer treatments. Florida governor Jeb Bush called the choice of NeoRx as Scripps Florida’s first partner in biotech research only the beginning of many scientific collaborations.

Georgia

BioSouth, formerly the Southern U.S. International Bio Alliance, Inc., today named its first President and CEO. C. Russell Allen, who previously served as the vice president of biosciences for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (MACOC), will lead the organization in support of the South’s bioscience industry by assisting with commercialization efforts, partnering with other bioscience companies and institutions throughout the world, and fostering and strengthening relationships between its member states and the international community.

Emory University Sells HIV Drug Royalties for $525 Million

Atlanta’s Emory University has entered into an agreement with Gilead Sciences Inc. and Royalty Pharma for the purchase of royalty rights to an HIV drug. The price tag on the sale of the rights is $525 million, which school officials believe is the largest amount ever for such a sale. The royalty interest is for emtricitabine, also known as Emtriva. Under the terms of the agreement, Gilead and Royalty Pharma will make a one-time cash payment of $525 million to Emory in exchange for the elimination of the emtricitabine royalties due to Emory on worldwide net sales of the drug.

Kansas

Kansas Bioscience Authority Approves Expenditure

The Kansas Bioscience Authority has approved its first expenditure – the $150,000 payoff on a pledge that helped persuade a California-based pharmacy benefit management company to add 850 jobs in Overland Park. Prescription Solutions announced July 7 th that it would open a mail-order and customer-service operations in the Overland Park International Trade Center by the beginning of 2006.

Kentucky

Kentucky Life Science Fund Raises $5 Million for Startup Companies

Kentucky’s Life Science Seed Fund has raised $5 million in commitment after Humana Inc. announced its contribution of $1 million. The Life Science Seed Fund is a venture fund that will provide capital for early-stage companies in the life sciences and healthcare industries. The $5 million total is about $2 million more than organizers expected to raise at this point and half of the $10 million goal that was set for the fund. Other contributors to the fund include the University of Louisville Foundation and the state of Kentucky, both of which have pitched in $1 million. Other commitments to the fund have been made by Baptist Healthcare System, the James Graham Brown Foundation Inc., Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services Inc., Kosair Charities, and about 10-15 individual investors.

Maryland

Maryland Ranks Fourth in Biotech

Ernst & Young has ranked two southern states among its top four for the biotechnology sector based upon concentration of biotech firms. North Carolina ranked third and Maryland ranked fourth after first-place California and second-place Massachusetts. The ranking was published in Ernst & Young’s Global Biotechnology Report 2005 Beyond Borders. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, North Carolina is home to 225 biotech, pharmaceutical, lab-testing and contract research companies while Maryland is home to 84.

PharmAthene, based in Annapolis, is ready to start testing of its anti-anthrax drug on humans. The drug, called Valotrim, was developed by PharmAthene and New Jersey-based firm Medarex Inc. Valotrim has already been tested with success on rabbits and monkeys, according to the companies. Next, it will be tried on up to 46 healthy volunteers. A majority of funding for the trial is coming from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Human Genome Sciences (HGS) has almost completed its massive $250 million manufacturing plant near its headquarters, which it expects to have approved for use within one year. The Rockville, Md.-based developer of gene-based drugs will soon complete the 290,000-square-foot facility this year and expects to have it validated by federal regulators so that it will be ready to manufacture drugs. The new plant is being built on 10 acres adjacent to an existing HGS manufacturing plant and located on the Belward Research Campus of Johns Hopkins University. At the new facility, the company will be able to produce drugs on a commercial scale.

With its own drugs in late-stage testing, HGS will use the facility to manufacture these new products once given FDA approval. In addition, the company will manufacture other companies’ drugs while it waits for its own to gain approval. When complete, the new project will be capable of producing several different biotech drugs, including human proteins, antibodies, and fusion proteins created by joining two genes together.

Johns Hopkins Named Top U.S. Hospital Again

Maryland’s Johns Hopkins Hospital has received the top spot in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of the nation’s best hospitals for the 15 th straight year. The guide rates American medical centers in 17 specialties. Other southern hospitals making the list were Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University in St. Louis and Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline will co-develop the drug of a Maryland-based company that has shown promising in treating rheumatoid arthritis. Human Genome Sciences Inc., based in Rockville, said that Glaxo will exercise its option to develop and commercialize LymphoStat-B under a joint partnership agreement that the two companies signed in 1996. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will split the costs of Phase III and Phase IV clinical trials and share the costs of marketing the drug if it’s commercialized. The companies will also share any profits from sales.

East Baltimore’s Biopark Moving from Pipe Dream to Reality

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore is working to promote the development of a massive east-side biotech park, a 10-year, $800 million project near Johns Hopkins Hospital. The development is slated to include more than a million square feet of lab space in five laboratory and office buildings and 850 homes. The park’s developer, Forest City Enterprises Inc. has experience that makes it well qualified for the Baltimore project. It was responsible for turning an aging blue-collar neighborhood near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s campus into a thriving 17-acre biopark. In Baltimore, there is nearly unanimous political support for the project from the mayor, members of the city council, members of congress and state lawmakers.

Rockville, Md. is home to a new company that is developing and commercializing synthetic biology. The new firm, Synthetic Genomics is trying to tap into the growing market for DNA research and development. The privately held company is being funded with $12 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy and $30 million being raised by the founder and outside investors. Synthetic Genomics will initially focus on ethanol and hydrogen production and integrate processes to design, build, and test outputs from synthetic organisms.

Faculty members at two Maryland universities are teaming up on a major education and research initiative that will focus on nanobiotechnology and molecular processing. The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and the University of Maryland at College Park will work together on projects that have the potential to accelerate the commercial development of inventions and intellectual property resulting from the collaboration. As part of the program, UMBI’s Center of Biosystems Research in College Park and Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology in Rockville are partnering with the University of Maryland at College Park’s A. James Clark School of Engineering. Potential research topics include the development of new systems for determining how biological materials function as well as to assess and control biochemical interactions.

UM, Baltimore County Receives $2M Grant for Research and Technology Park

The University of Maryland Baltimore County’s research and technology park received a $2 million grant to help it attract technology companies. The research park, which is owned and managed by a nonprofit corporation formed by the university, is designed to offer an environment that encourages research and opportunities to work with university-based researchers and students. The funding came from the Maryland General Assembly’s Legislative Policy Committee, which approved the $2 million from the state’s Sunny Day Fund that gives financial assistance to companies that spur economic development. The additional funding will help the research park outfit future buildings required by many technology and research companies, such as wet labs for biological work and specially designed units for classified research.

Johns Hopkins’ $1.24B in Research Secures 25th Year of Top Ranking

Johns Hopkins University has topped the nation for the 25th straight year in terms of scientific, medical, and engineering research. The Baltimore university performed $1.24 billion in research for fiscal year 2003, according to the National Science Foundation. Of that research, $1.1 billion was sponsored by the federal government with other sources of funding coming from industry, foundations and charitable donations. Hopkins crossed the $1 billion threshold for research funding in 2002 and remains the only U.S. university with more than $1 billion in annual research.

Device Manufacturer BioVeris Signs Large Lease in Maryland

Gaithersburg-based BioVeris, a developer of diagnostic tests for detecting and measuring biological and chemical substances, is leasing about 112,000 square feet at the Gaither Distribution Center. The company intends to use its space as a biosecurity customer center for the production of its tests and for customer training and certifications. The company has more than 200 workers.

Missouri

St. Louis to Blight 246 Acres for Biotech Corridor

The City of St. Louis has identified 246 acres on two sites in midtown that it plans to blight, according to documents filed with the St. Louis Development Corp. The development would include a long-discussed biotech corridor that would connect the area’s research centers and create life sciences infrastructure. The city plans to issue a request for proposals to develop the site. The nonprofit Center of Research Technology and Entrepreneurial Expertise (CORTEX) is the acknowledged frontrunner and the St. Louis Development Corp. is already calling the areas CORTEX West and CORTEX East on the filed documents.

Clean-Room Supplier Moves to N.C. and Saves 30 Percent in Annual Costs

To capitalize on the South’s growing cluster of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, a New Jersey clean-room supplier is moving its headquarters to Durham. Miller Products Co. Inc., which has been operating since 1930, will save more than 30 percent annually in overhead costs including rent maintenance, insurance, and taxes by moving to North Carolina. The company’s taxes will also be about 50 to 60 percent lower following the company’s relocation. Miller Products has leased 31,243 square feet at the Research Tri-Center industrial park in Durham.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) has broken ground on a $36 million Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center on Centennial Campus. The 91,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open in early 2007 and its goal is to train 2,000-3,000 workers per year for the state’s growing biomanufacturing industry. The Rocky Mount-based Golden Leaf Foundation granted NCSU $33.5 million in 2004 to build the center. The new facility will bring together faulty from the university’s Engineering and Agriculture and Life Sciences colleges to research and teach methods of biotechnology implementation in manufacturing. The new, state-of-the-art facility will provide a hands-on, full-scale training environment for current and future biomanufacturing employees in the state.

Dole Foods Co. Owner David Murdock is seeking assistance from four N.C. universities to create a biotech research center in Kannapolis. Dole representatives have requested assistance to revitalize the area from UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, N.C. State, and Duke University. Murdock purchased a former Pillowtex plant in downtown Kannapolis last year, which he reportedly plans to transform into a biotechnology center.

Southeast BIO (SEBIO), a regional nonprofit group that fosters the growth of the life sciences industry in the South, has a new website with information about the regional biotech industry and a persuasive case study for investing in the region. A public/private partnership formed in 1999, the organization (formerly known as the Southeastern Life Sciences Association) has been a convener of the South’s venture capital/biosciences event. See the new website at www.sebio.org.

According to a July 13, 2005 article from Dow Jones News Service, the Southeastern U.S. is starting to more aggressively pursue venture-capital investment to keep pace with its booming population and growing entrepreneurial base. Currently, the Southeast accounts for about 20 percent of the nation’s economic activity, but only about 9 percent of the VC dollars nationwide. In an effort to fight that deficit, 12 southern states have joined forces to lure more VC funding to the region. The group called VentureSouth has the goal of doubling the South’s share of VC funding to 20 percent. Member states include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Chairman of the group is Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a long-time venture capitalist. The initiative will last for two years and brings together 100 VC firms (all with southern offices), government officials, and economic development organizations across the South. The members plan to meet for the first time in October 2005 to plan ways to boost the region’s VC funding.

One of the central findings in a University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) study is that the well-established manufacturing traditions in the state’s Triad region make it a good fit for biotech initiatives that involve high value-added processing. The region is poised to leverage its existing strengths to support biomanufacturing including employee skills, community college training programs, and shipping and distribution channels. The UNCG study illustrates that there is a tangible biotech base to build upon and plenty of assets in place, such as the medical center at Wake Forest, training programs at the community colleges, major drug diagnostic firms like LabCorp, and top research firms like Ciba Specialty Chemicals and Novartis Animal Health.

South Carolina

Southeastern BIO Investor Forum Accepting Applications for Investor Conference

The Southeastern BIO Investor Forum (SEBIO) 2005 is now accepting applications from interested early-stage and mid- to late-stage private life sciences companies. The event is scheduled for December 1-2 in Charleston, South Carolina. The Southeastern BIO Investor Forum is an annual event of SEBIO, a regional, non-profit organization that fosters the growth of the life sciences industry in the Southeastern United States through efforts that promote entrepreneurship and bring together companies, investors, universities and support organizations active in the development of the industry. SEBIO currently includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. However, interested companies from other states are invited to apply to present at SEBIO 2005. For more information visit www.sebio.org.

Charleston to Focus on Developing Biosciences Cluster

Charleston has a new focus on cluster development, which includes increasing its biosciences cluster. The Charleston Regional Development Alliance recently commissioned a study from AngelouEconomic to identify the clusters on which the community should concentrate. Angelou recommended that the region focus on the following industries: biosciences, aircraft, automotive, advanced security, and the creative industries.

Tennessee

A program to analyze brain cancer using adult stem cells has put Memphis in a small club of elite medical centers. The program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is in collaboration with Methodist University Hospital Neuroscience Institute and Semmens-Murphey Neurologic and Spine Institute. Two pioneers in adult brain stem sell research who have isolated stem-like cells from human brain tumors were recruited to lead an effort to combine the fields of tumor cell and stem cell biology. The goal of the program is to look at cancer as a stem cell disease to help scientists better understand how cancer develops, spreads and resists treatment, with the ultimate goal of designing new, more effective therapies.

Biotech Industry, FedEx Lure Center for Tissue Banks in Memphis

Tissue Banks International is investing $3 million to set up the National Eye Bank Center in Memphis. The nonprofit network of eye and tissue banks will hire about 20 employees to run its 24-hour operation. The company’s decision to locate in Memphis was largely based on FedEx and the growing biotech industry. The center will centralize the screening, evaluation, and shipping of eye tissue recovered by member eye banks and other non-member eye banks for corneal transplant surgery and for ocular research.

University of Memphis Begins Offering Biomedical Engineering Degree

Beginning this fall, the University of Memphis’ Herff College of Engineering will offer an undergraduate degree program in biomedical engineering that builds on the college’s joint graduate program with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The Bachelor of Science in biomedical engineering is one of only two programs of its kind offered at a public university in Tennessee and is expected to draw students from several surrounding states. With the growing presence of biotechnology in Memphis, the program is designed to give students access to companies that work in the biotechnology field.

Texas

Texas Investing $50M to Fund Genome Project

Houston-area biotech firm Lexicon Genetics has received $35 million of a $50 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund. Lexicon’s award marks the fund’s largest grant to date with the approval of Gov. Rick Perry. Lexicon and Texas A&M University, which received the other $15 million, were given the grant to create the private nonprofit Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine.

San Antonio-based Biotech Firm Gets Approval from European Union

A Texas-based medical device company recently received a big boost from the European Union, which approved the sale of all of its bone- and cartilage-grafting products. By granting CE Mark approval for OsteoBiologics Inc.’s full line of PolyGraft products, the European Union’s regulatory officials passed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has yet to approve the company’s line of cartilage repair techniques. The company is also looking to expand into the Pacific Rim in Korea, China, and Australia.

Avail Medical Products, an outsource manufacturer of sterile, single-use medical devices, has opened a new 100,000-square-foot facility close to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The Fort Worth-based company has made the move as a direct result of what company leaders call “dramatic growth” over the past five years. In addition to manufacturing, assembly, and packaging capabilities, the new facility will include warehousing, distribution, and logistical support.

Houston Firm to Purchase International Medical Devices

Houston-based company Complete Care Medical Inc. will buy International Medical Devices, a San Antonio-area supplier of diabetes monitoring products and other equipment to treat chronic health conditions. International Medical Devices is already the exclusive provider of Medicare-approved diabetes products to Complete Care Medical’s subsidiary, Diabetes Gold Inc. Buying the firm will provide Complete Care with a lower cost of goods to support its inventory and will give the company continual access to new medical devices manufactured by the company’s vendors.

$100M Medical Research Institute Proposed for Austin

A 700-acre site in Austin is being considered for a proposed medical research institute, which would be jointly run by the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and the University of Texas. Plans call for an academic campus on roughly 24 acres that would contain nearly 1.4 million square feet of research, academic, clinic and research space. The institute would educate approximately 520 students per year. Proponents of the project say that the new location is a logical place for the new research center because the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas is being built on the same site and other major medical centers are also nearby. According to a spokesperson for the project, the center would concentrate on developmental biology, the kind of research common in the study of birth defects, stem cells and cancer.

Construction of Biomedical Research Building in Dallas set for 2006

Pre-construction work is underway for a new $20 million biomedical research building on the campus of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Construction of the building is set to begin in May 2006. The four-story, 75,000 square-foot building will have two floors of lab space and two floors of shell space. Completion is expected in November 2007.

Virginia

Virginia Lands New Philip Morris Bioscience R&D Facility

Philip Morris USA plans to build a new $300 million, 450,000 square-foot research and development facility at the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park in Richmond. The project is expected to create approximately 500 new scientific and engineering positions. The Philip Morris USA Research and Technology Center will bring the Park’s current development to more than 1.1 million square feet of laboratory, research and office space employing more than 2,000. The new facility is scheduled to open in 2007 and is Philip Morris’ first capital project since the 1980s. Once the new facility is complete, the scope of laboratory, research, and office space at the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park will double from its present size. The Park currently houses 53 biosciences companies, research institutes and the headquarters of the Virginia Biotechnology Association.

Prince William County and Virginia are still committed to providing millions of incentives dollars to Eli Lilly, which plans to build a massive new insulin manufacturing plant in Manassas by 2009. On June 7th, however, the company told county officials that the proposed manufacturing center will be slashed in half from 600,000 square feet and 700 employees to 300,000 square feet and 350 workers. Total cost for the project will drop from $425 million to $325 million. The total incentives package from the county and the commonwealth are about $7 million, with no sign of the county or state backing out of their commitments. According to the Eli Lilly, new technologies will enable the pharmaceutical company to make its insulin products at the same capacity with fewer people and less space. The facility, which was announced in 2002 and originally slated for completion in 2007, will be built on a 120-acre site at Innovation@Prince William, a business park of more than 1,000 acres that surrounds George Mason University’s life science campus. Innovation@Prince William is zoned for biotech, high-tech, and life sciences research and manufacturing.

Howard Hughes Attracts Commercial R&D Lab Space

A Virginia-based commercial development company plans to build four new buildings next to George Washington University’s Northern Virginia campus in Ashburn. The complex will offer more than 140,000 square feet of space, including commercial biotechnology R&D lab space. The goal, according to developers, is to provide research space for commercial activities in the new biotech cluster developing around the massive, half-billion dollar Howard Hughes biomedical facility. The space is particularly well suited for smaller businesses in the life science industry that need to be close to the institute.

Medical Manufacturing Facility to Open in Albemarle County

Princeton BioMeditech Corporation will invest $7 million to build a manufacturing facility in Albemarle County and create 115 new jobs. The company has entered into an exclusive marketing and manufacturing agreement with ContraVac, Inc., a privately-held biotechnology company. The new facility will provide manufacturing capability to ContraVac for its newly developed products to test male fertility. The Albemarle County facility will also provide research and development efforts, manufacturing and distribution for PBM’s current and future products. Virginia successfully competed against New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the project. Princeton BioMeditech Corporation has developed and introduced an extensive menu of over 70 different simple, rapid diagnostic tests for Fertility, Infectious Diseases, Drugs of Abuse, Tumor Markers, Cardiac Markers, Veterinary diagnostics and Environmental applications.

Wyeth Expands Greater Richmond Facility

Wyeth, a global leader in pharmaceuticals, consumer health care and animal health care, will expand its manufacturing and distribution operations in eastern Henrico County. The company will invest $30 million in highly automated packaging equipment, robotic material handling systems and electronic systems for production and inventory data. The new investment will allow Wyeth to increase its current production

In response to an overwhelming demand for its Tamiflu flu treatment, Swiss manufacturer Roche has announced that it plans to build another production plant in North America later this year. The company previously said it has orders from 25 countries and some would have to wait up to two years for doses to guard against what the World Health Organization has warned is a real danger of global pandemic caused by the avian flu.

QUIZ ANSWER