The 50,000 square foot facility, which is part of Sandoz’ C$80m (€53m) upgrade and expansion program, boosting local production capacity 66 percent, will manufacture “difficult-to-make products” for both the C$3.8bn a year Canadian generics sector and other key markets around the world.

The plant, which is due to be fully operational by mid September, comprises manufacturing, laboratory and warehousing space that the firm believes will give it the flexibility it needs to keep pace with increasing market demands.

Market to Double in Next Five Years

In its recent study, Business Monitor International (BMI) reported that the Canadian generics sector was worth C$3.8bn in 2007, around 13 percent of the country’s C$29bn drug market. BMI’s work revealed however that non-branded drugs made up 49 per cent of the total volume sold.

BMI also predicted that, in common with many markets worldwide, the loss of patent protection due to affect many top selling drugs in the next few years will present significant opportunities in the Canadian generics market, which it estimates will be worth C$5.5bn in 2011.

The country’s generics sector is set to become an even more attractive proposition as a result of Health Canada’s work on “subsequent-entry-biologics.” While US lawmakers continue to debate biosimilars, the Canadian agency has completed its first round of consultation on its draft approval framework.

Despite the progress, Canada still lags behind Europe, where regulators have approved biosimilar versions of Johnson & Johnson's Eprex and Amgen's Neupogen.

University of Chicago Gets Grants to Start Center for Systems Biology

The University of Chicago has reeled in $18 million through two new grants that it will use to start a center that will study systems biology, genomics, genetics and environmental change.

Specifically, the Chicago Center for Systems Biology will study how gene networks respond to environmental pressures and to genetic change.

CCSB will receive $15 million over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and $3 million over three years from the Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust and the Chicago Biomedical Consortium. The funding makes the CCSB one of a total of ten National Centers for Systems Biology funded through NIGMS.

CCSB will aim to find out how multiple genes for proteins work together as networks to regulate the basic processes of life. The center will concentrate on transcriptional networks and how the clusters of master genes regulate the activities of others by turning them on or off.

The researchers will study five core areas. They will look into how a single bacterial cell turns on or off various genes as responses to environmental stress, and they will use yeast, worms, and fruit flies to identify ancient stress-response circuits and learn how they have evolved differently in each system. CCSB scientists also will research fruit fly genetic networks related to anatomical development, and how gene transcription guides cell development into one of two types of cells in the fly’s eye. The fifth are of study will look into how chemical and genetic signals guide stem cells in bone marrow as they mature to become different kinds of blood cells.

Five Biotech, Medical Device Firms Unveil $301 Million in Projects within NC’s Triangle Region

Five companies involved in biotechnology and/or medical device manufacturing in North Carolina’s Research Triangle region unveiled more than $301 million worth of investments or expansions -- commitments projected to create more than 425 new jobs, according to the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, a group that coordinates economic development in a 13-county region.

The five represent about one third of the $1 billion investment total announced by the partnership for the period from June through August. Those projects are estimated to create a total of nearly 1,700 new jobs, and reflect more economic activity than the $819 million recorded for all of 2007.

The five life-sci companies:

Merck announced an additional $300 million investment creating 180 more jobs at its burgeoning new Durham vaccine manufacturing facility. Merck hopes to begin making chicken pox vaccine by 2010 at its $750 million plant, which will ultimately employ some 400 people.
Syngenta, the Swiss agricultural biotechnology firm, announced plans for a $671,640 investment, creating 75 jobs, at its Durham site.
Patheon, a global provider of drug development and manufacturing services, announced plans to move its headquarters from Canada to the Triangle, investing $437,500 and creating 150 jobs, both in its global headquarters and in a new analytical development laboratory.
Danish agricultural biotechnology company Cheminova announced establishment of a 20-person U.S. headquarters with a $146,080 initial investment.
Tryton Medical, a medical device maker, announced plans to establish a 12-person corporate headquarters in Wake County.

Developers Eye 2.3 Million Additional Square Feet of Life Sciences Space in SF Peninsula

In addition to some one million square feet of biotech office or R&D space now available in the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula region for lease, developers plan on bringing another two million square feet to the sub-market over the next year or two.

Developers, brokers and biotech leaders quoted by the newspaper said they need the additional space to accommodate growing tenants. A consensus of developers said they are proceeding mostly with “build to suit” projects designed with a specific tenant in mind.

One company, Chamberlin Associates, is developing more than 185,000 square feet in South San Francisco for neurological drugs maker Elan. That includes a new 102,000-square-foot facility at 180 Oyster Point Blvd., set to be completed by November. Elan also has signed on for 83,420 square feet at Chamberlin-developed 200 Oyster Point, the shell for which will be completed in October 2009.

Elan now leases four single-story buildings totaling 215,000 square feet in Chamberlin’s Gateway Business Park and closed its San Diego facility, integrating development and commercial functions in South San Francisco. Another developer, BioMed Realty Trust, has another 1.6 million square feet already approved or proposed. And space is under construction by Alexandria Real Estate Equities and Health Care Property Investors.

Chamberlin is also seeking approvals from South San Francisco officials for a master plan to redevelop Gateway Business Park. The developer wants to build 1 million square feet of new space over 10 years.

New space is not cheap to build, at between $200 and $250 per square foot, compared to roughly $70 per square foot for open office space. But the vacancy rate for existing Peninsula sites of 50,000-plus square feet with ready-to-go lab space is low at about 5 percent.

“The worst thing is to have someone who wants space and you don’t have it,” said Randy Scott, a partner with Cornish & Carey Commercial who has worked on some 270 life sciences lease deals, told the newspaper. “There’s a lot of shell space, but then that’s another nine months to build out.”

The world’s largest and second-largest biotech companies, Genentech and Gilead Sciences — have proposed expansions of their campuses in South San Francisco and Foster City, respectively. But the leasing market has numerous other available properties, like the three buildings totaling 348,000 square feet that Amgen never occupied and put on the sublease market in last year, the newspaper noted.

SAFC Pharma Plans $30 Million Third Expansion of Madison-Area Operations

A pharmaceutical products subsidiary of Sigma-Aldrich has announced plans for a $30 million expansion of its Madison operations. St. Louis-based SAFC Pharma said it will buy 15 acres in Verona, Wis., near the Madison, WI, production site where it makes high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients, for construction of a 45,000-square-foot plant for large-scale production.

The Verona plant will house commercial-scale reactors capable of producing pharmaceutical ingredient batch sizes up to 4,000 liters. Construction of the plant is expected to be complete by the end of 2009.

The new plant marks SAFC’s third expansion of its Madison-area operations in recent years. With the expansion, SAFC will have invested more than $75 million in developing its high-potency compound manufacturing capabilities in recent years, including a $4.5 million expansion of the Madison operations in 2007 and a $12 million expansion completed in 2006.

Genome Analysis Centre Headed for Norwich (UK) Research Park

The UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council has confirmed it is planning to develop a Genome Analysis Center within the Norwich Research Park.

The facility would employ 60 people directly, but is projected to create between 500 and 750 indirect jobs as scientists spin out new companies.

Next month, the Norfolk County Council will be asked to provide a subsidy for the new facility, whose cost is not being made public.

But John Fuller, leader of South Norfolk Council, told the Evening News the project needs significant funding from the regional East of England Development Agency: “This is an exciting prospect but it needs substantial funding from EEDA and the key elements of the business case are still being worked through.

LAB Research Awarded More than $3M for Expansion of its Laval, Quebec Facilities

LAB Research, a Canadian global non-clinical contract research organization, has received more than CAN $3 million ($2.8 million) in government subsidies and loans to support the company’s $40 million, three-year expansion of its facilities in Laval, Quebec.

LAB Research obtained a non-refundable contribution of $2 million ($1.9 million) as part of a program for attracting and retaining research investments administered by the Québec government's Ministère du Développement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation.

LAB Research was also awarded a CAN $529,000 ($496,429.44) subsidy from the Québec government's Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité Sociale to contribute to the creation of 242 new jobs. The company also obtained a CAN $500,000 ($469,374) loan from Canada Economic Development as part of its Business and Regional Growth Program. Finally, LAB Research will receive a municipal tax credit from the City of Laval for a five-year period.

Initiated in the second half of 2007, the expansion project will increase the site capacity from 87,000 to 170,000 square feet, including a 120 percent increase of the vivarium activities and the addition of several new services such as inhalation toxicology, metabolism studies and bio-analytical capabilities. Part of the expansion is set to be complete later this month.

Therapure Opens Doors for Business

Canada-based Therapure Biopharma has begun work on its first contracts with customers in biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing. The company’s 130,000 sq. ft. current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) compliant facility in Ontario, Canada has begun manufacturing complex biological products for its clients.

Hollister-Stier Poised to Complete Expansion

Hollister-Stier Laboratories, a contract manufacturer and aseptic processor/filler of commercial and clinical-trial sterile injectables, has outlined its expansion plans.

HollisterStier is poised for several opportunities and growth. The company is completing a $41-million facility project that has doubled laboratory and production capacity. The 20-acre site's main building has more than 191,000 sq ft with 130,000 sq ft of manufacturing space. Part of the facility upgrade includes a strategic move to add a second high-speed commercial aseptic filling line that can fill 2- to 100-mL vials at speeds to 400/min.

Hollister-Stier’s capabilities cover aseptic processing of lyophilised and liquid products, vaccines, biological proteins, microspheres, liposomes, suspensions and diluents.

Aseptically filling in an ISO 5 (Class 100) clean room, the new line can run three vial sizes: 2- and 3-mL vials run at 400/min and a 10-mL size runs at 240/min.

Enclosing the line is an isolating or restricted access barrier system (RABS) that was also customized to a certain degree. The barrier provides an internal ISO 5 (Class 100) environment within an ISO 6 (Class 1000) clean room. Given the intricate smoke studies of laminar flow patterns that HollisterStier performs, along with computer simulations, the decision was made in consultation with Bosch to have a system without glove ports, normally a common feature of an RABS.

“We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of glove ports in some detail,” recalls Plansky. “But at the end of the day, there was a collaborative effort to assess air flow patterns and everyone was very confident: If you have proper air flow, there's no need for glove ports.”

Bear says that Bosch was also able to provide a “door” within the main barrier that lets operators reach inside, with air flow patterns maintained while the door is open.

The system's Plexiglas walled enclosure has an offset mounting in the same plane as the inside of the framework of the RABS, which creates a smooth surface that further stabilizes the air flow.

West Expands Manufacturing Facility

West has completed expansion work at its Kinston, North Carolina manufacturing facility, giving the company additional compounding and custom manufacturing capacity. The site will create more than 150 new jobs.

Dow Expands Printing Portfolio

Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences has expanded its internal clinical labelling printing capabilities by adding non-smear thermal transfer printers to its facility.

In addition Dow has installed software that allows for uploading and printing of random codes, allowing the company to print any single panel label.

Dow believes this will decrease cost, allow for timely label revisions and speed-up re-supply for its clients in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Northern England to Host New National Industrial Biotechnology Facility

The UK’s investment and business development agency has signed contracts to create an $11 million National Industrial Biotechnology Facility in northern England.

The new center at Wilton, Middlesbrough will be designed to create new chemical and pharmaceutical products using biological enzymes as catalysts. The center will draw on a collaboration of Manchester and York universities known as the COEBio3 initiative.

The facility will be housed in the Centre for Process Innovation, a center of excellence created to develop new products and processes for the chemical sector. CPI hopes the NIBF will be completed at the end of the year and will be able to sustain itself financially within two years.

The center will allow companies located in the region to take advantage of new technologies and carry out trials on new products before bringing them to market.

NC Biotech Center Awards $540K in Educational-Enhancement Grants

The state-funded North Carolina Biotechnology Center has awarded a total of $540,481 in Education Enhancement Grants to a dozen educational institutions and individuals statewide. The grants are designed to support science education at colleges and universities statewide. Grant winners were:

Steffen Heber of North Carolina State University, $80,146 to develop a library of interactive bioinformatics animations and to organize a symposium about bioinformatics education. The results of the animation library, the symposium, and additional links to related educational resources will be made available online.

Mickael Cariveau of Mount Olive College, $71,807 to develop a new cell biology course, with an accompanying laboratory, for undergraduate juniors and seniors. The course is being designed to better prepare Mount Olive graduates for careers in North Carolina biotechnology companies. Some student research will be done in collaboration with the department of radiation oncology at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.

Shea Tuberty of Appalachian State University, $62,000 to help buy instruments to be used for sewage sleuthing, to detect toxic threats in the waste stream.

Warren DiBiase of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, $59,000 to develop and implement a graduate-level biotechnology course for science teachers who work in North Carolina’s middle schools and high schools. The course will model the use of techniques that teachers are encouraged to employ in their classrooms, such as open-ended inquiry and problem-based learning.

Lori Seischab of Western Carolina University, $52,410 to help equip a new biotech teaching laboratory. The lab includes specialized rooms for molecular, chemical, and microscopic analyses and provides eight laboratory workstations accommodating 12 to 24 students per class in molecular biology, microbiology, and forensics.

Libby Puckett, also of ASU, $49,916 to help integrate modern biotechnology/analytical instrumentation and data-handling technology into some of her university’s advanced chemistry labs.

The Morehead Planetarium and Science Center's DESTINY Traveling Science Learning Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $48,770 for hands-on curriculum that introduces high school students to the use of polymerase chain reaction. The curriculum uses genetic testing for breast cancer as its context, melding classroom instruction, laboratory activities, and the NC Standard Course of Study.

Russell Reeve of the Campbell University Clinical Research Center, $33,650 to develop continuing-education courses aimed at helping scientists around the state better prepare themselves to work in research-based pharmaceutical companies.

Jens Carlsson, visiting assistant professor at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, NC, $27,000 for a program in which students will develop forensic field kits for genetic testing in marine conservation pursuits.

Cynthia Warrick of the School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Elizabeth City State University, $18,000 to help her school develop multi-disciplinary science curricula in fields such as bionanotechnology and bioinformatics.

Joy Callahan of Johnston Community College's Continuing Education Division, $15,482 to develop an aseptic-environment certificate program to add to the workforce training offerings of the division’s Business and Industry Services. The program will teach such fundamentals as gowning, environmental monitoring and operating a product fill line in an aseptic, or sterile, environment typical of those found in the state’s growing number of biopharmaceutical manufacturing sites.

Mary Farwell of East Carolina University, $15,000 to develop a certificate program in applied biology for MBA students who have not completed degrees in biology.

Jameson McCann, of the Biotechnology Institute at Guilford Technical Community College, $7,383 to boost the program’s biotechnology workforce training program.

Colorado BioScience Association Seeks Entries for BioWest Venture Showcase Award

The Colorado BioScience Association is seeking entries for its annual BioWest Venture Showcase award. Six companies in biotechnology, medical devices or biofuels will be chosen to present to a panel of national venture capital investors on Nov. 13 at the 2008 BioWest Conference and Expo, to be held Nov. 13-14 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Denver. The winner will receive $10,000.

DuBioTech Announces December Completion for Research Laboratory

Dubai Biotechnology and Research Park, known as DuBiotech, said its Dh250 million ($68.1 million) research laboratory will be up and running in December. Comprising about 250,000 square feet, the research lab will be able to accommodate about 100 companies.

The research lab is one of three main buildings that comprise the project’s Dh1.2 billion first phase. The science and business park for life sciences industry, launched in 2005, currently has 42 companies who have set up offices in the free zone, with other businesses in the pipeline.

Of the total project space, about two million square feet is allocated to manufacturing. About 50 percent has already been taken up by companies who are in the process of constructing their facilities.

While companies in the park are concentrating on therapeutics at the moment, there is growing interest by companies focused on agriculture and environment also.

Massachusetts Opens New Trade Office in Beijing, with Biotech in Mind

Massachusetts officials said the commonwealth would open a new, separate trade office in Beijing, as well as maintain a satellite contact office in Shanghai. Massachusetts previously shared a Shanghai-based office with four other states.

The Massachusetts Beijing office is centrally located within Beijing’s financial district; the contact office in Shanghai is within Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, which is home to more than 6,000 global companies.

The offices offer Massachusetts companies assistance with customized market entry studies, agent/distributor searches, due diligence as well as other local market support. Exports from Massachusetts companies to China have increased by 79 percent since 2005 — a key reason why the state upgraded its presence in the world’s most populous nation.

In Shadow of Mendel Monastery, Czech Republic City Eyes Four Life Science Projects

Officials in the Czech Republic are working to transform the 13th Century city of Brno — where Gregor Mendel pioneered the field of genetics some 150 years ago — into a modern biotech hub to attract firms eager to tap into a skilled work force.

The Czech Republic now hosts around 60 biotech firms, mainly near Brno and the capital of Prague.

But Brno, the country's second biggest city, has one biotech selling point — a partnership with Mayo Clinic. The venture in Brno, about halfway between Prague and Vienna, marks the first time the Mayo Clinic has looked abroad and is one of four potential new research centers for the city.

The plan for Brno also includes a "Medipark" life science campus at Masaryk University, a regional European Union center focusing on biotech, and an electron accelerator to aid drug development.

The government plans to invest some $500 million to support the four projects -- with some money also coming from the European Union — in hopes of successfully competing directly with established biotech hubs in California and newer ones in Asia.

3M Buys Switzerland’s Ligacon

3M has completed the acquisition of Swiss filtration specialist Ligacon, considerably expanding its offering to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

The deal, financial terms of which are not being released, will integrate Tagelswangen-headquartered Ligacon into 3M’s existing CUNO Filtration unit, which produces clarification, separation and purification solutions for industrial clients.

Through the deal Ligacon will set about expanding its industrial filtration offering via incorporation of 3M’s existing technologies and development platform. The firm is also set to benefit from 3M’s considerable marketing presence.

Dishman Buys Land for New Manufacturing Plant

India’s Dishman Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals has purchased land for its Pharmaceutical and Chemical facility, near Bavla in Gujarat. It has acquired a 390 acre site and plans to invest Rs 5bn ($112.7m) in the facility.

In a separate release, the company said that it is venturing into manufacturing and marketing of disinfectant and sensitization products in India, Saudi Arabia and Australia. The company will make formulated products for hospitals, domestic use and industrial disinfection.

Dishman will enter Australian market through its existing Australian subsidiary while in Saudi Arabia it will start operations under the JV called Dishman Arabia Limited.

Stiefel’s Plans for Barrier Therapeutics

Dermatology specialist Stiefel Laboratories says that its acquisition of New Jersey based Barrier Therapeutics, which was completed in August, has significantly expanded its product offering.

Stiefel’s worldwide network includes more than 30 subsidiaries around the world, a research and development organisation spanning four continents and six manufacturing operations.

Stiefel’s development and manufacturing operations include R&D facilities in the US, UK and Brazil, as well as its production plants in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Ireland and Pakistan.

Forbes Sells Pharmaceutical Assets

Forbes MediTech has sold off its pharmaceutical assets and business unit based in San Diego to Transition Therapeutics. The deal includes a payment of $1m and a potential future sum of $6 million, in cash or shares, based on the achievement of certain developmental and regulatory milestones.

Forbes acquired the pharmaceutical unit in October 2006 as part of its acquisition of Therapei Pharmaceuticals. In May, the company announced restructuring plans to focus on its core nutraceuticals business.

Metrics Doubles size of Facility

Metrics, Inc. is now offering microbiology-testing services to the pharmaceutical industry following its recent $18-million, 47,000-sq.-ft. expansion, which doubled the size of its facility and expanded its service capabilities.

As part of its new microbiology lab, the company has brought antibiotic assay and sterility testing online, enhancing its full microbiological support of sterile products. The company routinely performs bacterial endotoxin and particulate matter testing on parenterals. Metrics’ facility addition also includes four new fully operational analytical labs, validated and ready to handle projects; stability storage with state-of-the-art environmental specialties chambers with redundant mechanical systems and strictly limited personnel access; and a dedicated cytotoxic and potent compound laboratory.

Cirrus Adds cGMP Chambers

Cirrus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has expanded its current capacity for stability storage with the addition of 3 LUWA walk-in stability chambers. The company will add three large capacity, cGMP compliant chambers, each with 1,100 cubic feet of storage space. The new additions include: 25°C / 60% RH storage (long-term conditions); 30°C / 65% RH storage (Intermediate conditions); and 40°C / 75% RH storage (Accelerated Conditions).

With the expansion, Cirrus will be able to increase its current capabilities of formulation and product development services for various dosage forms including inhalation, nasal, parenteral, oral, topical and transdermal. The expansion also enhances its release testing and stability testing in support of clinical trials, IND and NDA submissions. Validation of the chambers, including temperature and humidity mapping and monitoring systems, are scheduled for completion by November of this year.

Tata Industries Expands

Tata Industries is planning to invest Rs 800-1,000 crore in biotechnology and nanotechnology. The company has already pumped in Rs 125 crore in these segments, Mr Kishor Chau-kar, managing director, said.

"Contract research, drug discovery and herbal medicine are areas that are at the top of our priority list. We are trying to come up with a drug for fighting diabetes and metabolic disorders," Mr Chaukar said. Tata Industries has invested Rs 80 crore in three entities in this segment, of which, Indigene has operations in Hyderabad.

He said, "We are interested in a bio warfare project that is being developed by a non-resident Indian scientist in association with the US defense department. We think the project has great potential even in the field of medicine and hence have put in Rs 60 crore in the technology." If successful, the company would buy the rights to the technology and launch it in India, Africa and Latin America, he added.

Roche Closes Palo Alto Plant

Swiss drug maker Roche is planning to shutter its 1,000-worker Palo Alto research lab as it pursues its takeover bid for Genentech Inc. A Roche Palo Alto spokeswoman said the 1-million-square-foot facility's inflammation research unit will move to Nutley, N.J., Roche's current U.S. headquarters.

The company expects to move its Palo Alto virology operations to Genentech's nearby South San Francisco campus, though the unit would remain separate from the biotechnology giant.

Spokeswoman Jacqueline Wallach said the timing of the closure, which would force some job losses, depends on a deal with Genentech. Roche already owns nearly 56 percent of Genentech, which last month rejected Roche's $43.7 billion buyout offer but said it was open to a higher bid.

Human Genome Sciences (HGS) and Hospira Work Together on Manufacturing

Human Genome Sciences (HGS) and Hospira signed an exclusive agreement for manufacturing process development and commercial supply of select Hospira biopharmaceutical products.

“We look forward to using our company’s world-class manufacturing facilities, quality systems, and process development capabilities to help advance and supply biopharmaceutical products for Hospira,” says said Curran Simpson, senior vp of operations at HGS.

Protein and antibody process development and manufacturing are core HGS competencies, adds Simpson. The company reports that it currently produces several protein and antibody drugs in two cGMP-compliant process development and manufacturing facilities, which total approximately 400,000 square feet and provide both small-scale and large-scale production in batches from 650 to 20,000 liters.

Marksans Acquires Relonchem

Contract services firm Marksans Pharmaceutical says that the RPS 1bn (€15.4m) acquisition of UK generics group Relonchem will expand its distribution network and build its presence in the European market.

The purchase, Marksans’ second in the UK this year after over-the-counter (OTC) drug firm Bell’s & Sons, grants the India group further access to the UK’s $7.6bn (€5.2bn) generics market.

The deal will see Marksans transfer the manufacture of some Relonchem’s roster of 36 licensed generic products, which generated revenue of $32m last year, to its facilities Goa, Pune and Maharashta.

The Indian firm believes that its existing contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) setup will shorten the development process and provide the integrated company with the flexibility to adapt to the highly competitive and ever shifting European generics sector.

Rajesh Vig, executive director of PriceWaterhousCooper’s corporate finance department, said that the deal, which provides Marksans with a European front end for its business, makes sense in the current economic climate.

He explained that: “With global pharmaceutical companies facing tremendous pressure due to a drying R&D drug pipeline, rising costs and imminent generic competition from drugs going off patent, the generic drug market is the next big opportunity in the industry.”

In an interview with India’s CNBC-TV18, Marksans’ managing director Mark Saldanha, said that the move is part of an expansion effort that will see the Indian firm generate around 60 per cent of its revenue from global markets in the next few years.

Outsourcing Clinical Trials Opens Doors in Belarus

Russian CRO Outsourcing Clinical Trials (OCT) is strengthening its position in eastern Europe with the opening of its new office in Minsk, Belarus, to add to its existing presence in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and the Baltic states.

The company said Belarus was an important country for clinical research because there is as yet little competition for patient recruitment trials, a relatively high population of about 10 million people that tends to be concentrated in big cities, plus a centralized healthcare system and large therapeutic hospitals.

In other news, OCT said it had just won a contract for a 60-patient trial in diabetes, which will take place at six clinical sites in Russia.

Boost for UK Clinical Trial Sector

Two universities in the West Midlands of the UK, Birmingham and Warwick, are to receive just under £10m (€12.3m) apiece in order to advance their preclinical research projects into clinical testing. The government funding has come from the West Midlands Regional Development Agency.

Warwick University will use the money to set up a dedicated clinical trials unit, while Birmingham will invest in a refurbishment of its existing clinical infrastructure. Other projects include the development of a dedicated human tissue biorepository at Birmingham, the refurbishment of laboratories at Warwick, and the creation of a mobile clinical trials which will visit regional GP surgeries and hospitals where facilities for clinical research do not currently exist.

$400-Million Endowment Edges Broad Institute towards Independence

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a prominent genomics and chemical-biology research centre based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has received an endowment of US$400 million from philanthropist Eli Broad that sets it on a course to becoming an independent, non-profit organization.

Set up in 2004 as a unique collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, both also in Cambridge, Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals, the institute now has a more secure future. Earlier gifts — two $100-million donations from Broad — had an expiry date: the funds had to be used within ten years; beyond that, the future of the institute was uncertain. However, this new gift will be invested and used to support the institute over the long term.

Launched to unite the clinical expertise of Harvard's medical school with academics and engineers at MIT and Harvard, the institute has grown to encompass 1,200 affiliated scientists. It is renowned for its genomics projects, which span the gamut from sequencing the genomes of a menagerie of mammals to looking for genetic factors underlying conditions such as schizophrenia and autism. The centre's chemical-biology program, meanwhile, screens for small molecules to study and treat diseases. The new endowment will not alter the institute's core research focus, says founding director Eric Lander.

Surefil Adds Production Line

Surefil LLC, a Grand Rapids, Michigan contract manufacturer of liquid-fill products for the personal care, homecare, and medical industries is pleased to announce the addition of a new, lower volume, and diversified production line to their portfolio of services. The new line will be used primarily for production of lower volume products that can be used for test marketing. "We will be working with our customers to provide them with lower cost options for market testing and new product introductions" says Surefil founder and CEO Bill Hunt. "The capabilities of this new line speed up presentation of the product to market and create a new range of opportunities for our customers to test the waters before they order high volumes of a product." Lower minimum volumes and lower capital costs for change parts make the line a more cost-effective option for companies who are anxious to try out new products. The recent expansion has also given Surefil additional capacity to take on new customers.

Algorithme Enters Europe via Wales

Canadian contract research organisation Algorithme Pharma has taken over Simbec Research, an early-phase specialist based in Wales. The deal represents the first foray into the European market for the Phase I-II trials specialist, which also bought a clinical research unit in Baltimore, US last month.

Medical Device CRO looks Stateside

Factory CRO, a Netherlands-based firm specializing in regulatory trials for medical devices, has tapped AmeriStart for sales, marketing and business-development support. Under the terms of the agreement agreement, AmeriStart will promote Factory CRO’s clinical research capabilities to the North American medical device market. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

Cefla America Has New Headquarters in North Carolina

Cefla America, a division of Italian manufacturer Cefla Group has laid plans to make Huntersville, NC, home to its new North American headquarters. The $15.9 million project will create more than 90 jobs. The forthcoming 120,000-square-foot flex building will be constructed upon one of two sites in Huntersville and will feature office, lab, manufacturing, distribution, showroom and R&D space. The company plans to use the new location for manufacturing and distributing wood-finishing equipment and dental supplies. Huntersville Economic

Development's town commissioners have authorized a five-year incentive grant plan for the company valued at $23,200 per year. Cefla currently has operations in High Point, NC, and Canada.

Biotech and Pharma Projects Move Forward

Biotech and pharma projects continue to move forward, despite high development costs and the high cost of capital needed to finance construction.

Developer Forest City Science +Technology Group broke ground on the Colorado Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimons, a 184-acre life science business park at the former site of the Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Aurora, CO. Meanwhile in the Route 128 biotech submarket in Massachusetts, Gutierrez Co. and Richards Barry Joyce & Partners have won approval from the town of Burlington for their proposed 590,000-square-foot development.

The Colorado project is the first life science building to go vertical at the Aurora site for Forest City, the life-science subsidiary of Forest City Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: FCE.A), a $10.5 billion national real estate company. The project will feed the growth of the region's life science industry while growing existing incubator tenants on site. Forest City he has an extensive portfolio of other life science assets, including biotech/life science parks in Boston at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, outside of Chicago in Skokie, IL, and a new property just getting underway in Baltimore in affiliation with Johns Hopkins.

A Hyatt Place hotel and conference facility and 175,000-square-foot office building for University Physicians, Inc. is also slated for the Fitzsimons site near Denver. The Fitzsimons Federal Credit Union will also break ground soon on a new facility.

The Colorado Science + Technology Park located near I-225 and Colfax already houses two incubator buildings totaling 80,000 square feet and will reach approximately 6 million square feet at build out.

According to an updated economic study, the former army medical center site will produce $3.5 billion in annual economic output this year and up to $4.5 billion in annual economic impact within five years. The site now includes the tech park, the Anschutz Medical Campus, the Children's Hospital and Research Center, and the future Veterans Affairs Hospital.

The park would bring 20,000 on-site jobs by 2013 and more than 43,000 when fully developed. The 578-acre Fitzsimons property is expected to reach full development between 2033 and 2038.

Gutierrez Co.'s and Richards Barry Joyce & Partners' proposed 590,000-square-foot development in Burlington, MA, has won approval from the town for biotechnology use.

The Burlington Research Center is the largest development in the Route 128 marketplace to be cleared for biotech research and development use. The project includes three buildings with 590,000 square feet of biotechnology research and development, office space plus a restaurant and retail space on 16 acres at 43-63 South Ave., approximately 12 miles from downtown Boston.

BremnerDuke to Develop Medical Building near South Bend, IN

Duke Realty Corp.’s healthcare real estate division, BremnerDuke Healthcare Real Estate, is developing a 205,000-square foot medical office building on Saint Joseph’s Regional Medical Center’s campus in Mishawaka, IN.

The four-story building will be connected to the hospital on four levels and will feature an MRI Center, Wound Care Center, and Riley Hospital for Children’s Pediatric Clinic. BremnerDuke has retained Grubb & Ellis|Cressy & Everett in Mishawaka to lease the medical office building.

The medical office building on the north side of the St. Joseph’s campus on Douglas Road in Edison Lakes will be connected to a new 658,000-square foot inpatient hospital that is being built on the 90-acre campus. Physicians will have the option of leasing space on floors that are associated with specific inpatient services in the hospital -- for example, pediatric physicians can be linked by a walkway to the inpatient pediatric unit. This design will provide patients with a high level of care.

BremnerDuke expects to complete for the office building in summer 2009, while Saint Joseph Hospital is on schedule for completion and occupancy at the end of 2009.

The leasing team for Grubb & Ellis|Cressy & Everett includes George Cressy, Sheral Litell, Corey Cressy, Noah Davey and Mindy Risser.

Aesica Opens New Global Headquarters

Aesica, a leading supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients and formulated products to the global pharmaceutical industry, announces the opening of their new global corporate headquarters in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK.

Aesica has more than tripled in size since being founded in 2004 and has built a customer base that includes the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, leading generics manufacturers and emerging pharma companies. The new headquarters, which is located close to Newcastle city centre, will house the key business functions of the company including, the CEO’s office and Executive team, and the Finance, Business Development and HR teams. With a central location, close to all amenities and international transport links, the new office will enable Aesica to better serve its customers and continue to grow its API and formulated products business.

The office will also support Aesica’s three manufacturing and packaging sites in Cramlington, Ponders End and Queenborough, UK, as well as the Company’s recently established US commercial presence.

Foster City, CA, HQ Will Nearly Double in Gilead’s 1,900-Job Expansion Plan

Gilead Sciences will nearly double the office and R&D space at its Foster City headquarters as part of a plan to create 1,900 new jobs there over the next decade.

The world’s second-largest biotech company, based on market value, would increase space at Gilead’s campus just west of the San Mateo Bridge from 629,154 square feet to 1.2 million square feet, with groundbreaking for the first office building as early as the first half of next year.

Gilead would raze eight one- or two-story office/R&D buildings, and build up to seven new buildings — up to three eight- to 10-story office buildings, and up to four new two- to four-story laboratory buildings, including manufacturing and pilot production facilities.

They would like to start construction next year. The expansion plans for Foster City come as Gilead has a record number of compounds in its development pipeline, and is boosting its research and development spending. How soon Gilead can start will hinge on the duration of an environmental impact study that will begin next month and should be finished in January or February.

Gilead, which opened a 63,260-square-foot lab building on the Vintage Park campus last fall, would increase its Foster City workforce from 1,200 in 2007 to 3,100 in 2017, according to its plan. The company first rented, then in 2003 bought 16 buildings in the Vintage Park Business Park. More recently, company growth has pushed it to rent space beyond Vintage Park.

Gilead has more than 3,200 employees worldwide and expects to double its workforce in Seattle and Durham, NC, over the next 10 years as well.

Abbott Eliminates 1,000 Diagnostic Jobs; Shuts Pasadena Manufacturing Site

Abbott Laboratories has disclosed plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs – 1.5 percent of its total work force – over four years by shutting down its South Pasadena, CA, manufacturing plant and laying off staffers at the company’s manufacturing facilities in Santa Clara, CA, and its headquarters community of Lake Forest, IL.

Most of the operations will be transferred to factories in Ireland. The company's diagnostic business has been growing faster in Europe than in the US.

Abbott disclosed its planned cutback in an Aug. 21 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The action is Abbott’s second round of layoffs in less than a year; In December, the company announced plans to eliminate about 700 workers in Temecula, Calif., and another 500 in Galway, Ireland.

Three Massachusetts Life-Sci Companies Expanding Operations within the State

Three life sciences companies are expanding their operations in Massachusetts, according to the Boston Globe:

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has scheduled a Sept. 8 ribbon-cutting to mark the completion of a $109 million, 115,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturing plant in Walpole, Mass. Over the next decade, the company plans to add 70 jobs to its current workforce of 525 there.
Advance Medical, a unit of Advance Medical Health Care Management Services SA of Barcelona, Spain, has opened a U.S. headquarters in Boston's Fenway neighborhood with a dozen full-time administrative staffers and another dozen part-time doctors, in addition to contractors. Advance Medical plans to double its local employment by year-end.
Covidien is seeking more than $1 million in state and local tax subsidies toward its planned purchase of a 115,000-square-foot building in Mansfield, MA, for R&D and administrative space.
Nevada Cancer Institute weighs longer construction period for new facility after laying off 47 staffers.

The Nevada Cancer Institute is leaving open the possibility of taking longer than envisioned to hire the 35 to 40 researchers envisioned for its new 150,000-square-foot research building when it opens late next year.

The institute has blamed a decline in fundraising for its laying off 47 staffers and eliminating another roughly half-dozen vacant positions on Aug. 7. The job cuts come to 15 percent of the institute’s pre-layoff staff.

The institute will not delay plans to move into another new 101,000-square-foot support building set to open later this year. The building will allow all of its operations within its own campus, where some two dozen scientists carry out research.

Fundraising began to slow during the first quarter, and deteriorated markedly in the second quarter. During the first two full years, operations lost $45.1 million, but were covered by $103 million generated by fundraising, including a $15 million grant from the Engelstad Family Foundation toward fighting lung cancer. The institute finished last year with $72.3 million on hand, but elected not to use it and avoid the layoffs — in large part because the terms of its $53.7 million in debt require maintaining a cushion of capital.

Chaska BioTech Center Lands its First Tenant, a ‘Multi-Versity’

The Chaska, MN, City Council has approved conceptual plans for EdCampus, a “multi-versity” or campus of multiple higher-education facilities, as the first tenant of the city’s planned BioTech Center.

The council’s Aug. 18 unanimous vote clears the way for EdCampus to rise within a four-story, 450,000-square-foot building with 121 customizable classrooms, within a 51-acre site. Up

to 5,000 students are projected to attend EdCampus annually. The school is tentatively set to break ground next spring. Interim City Administrator Matt Podhradsky told the Herald the city has made contact with a number of other undisclosed prospective tenants interested in the BioTech Center.

Mass. Construction Contractor Completes 15,000-SF Tenant Fit-Up for Life-Sci Marketing Firm

Integrated Builders, a Braintree, Mass., construction management and general contracting firm, has completed a 15,000-square-foot tenant fit-up project for Advanstar Communications, a provider of marketing services for the life sciences as well as the fashion and power sports industries.

Integrated Builders worked on Advanstar’s space, in Woburn, Mass., with Boston-based architectural design firm Spangnolo/Gisness & Associates.

Biotech Company among Tech Tenants Filling Downtown San Francisco Building

A life sciences company was among six new tenants that have signed leases for about half the space at the recently-renovated, 81,000-square-foot 717 Market St. in downtown San Francisco.

ACT Biotech, a developer of oral cancer drugs, agreed to lease 3,000 square feet at the eight-story, turn-of-the-century building, where owner Ellis Partners has completed a $6 million renovation that included a new lobby, new facade and upgraded finishes.

Since then, ACT Biotech joined Responsys, the W2 Group, Sun Run Generations, Allen Interactions, and the lunch eatery Sellers Market on the building’s tenant roster. An additional 10,300 square feet of leasing deals are in the works.

Greenfield Planning Board Recommends Development of 'Green Technology Campus'

The Greenfield, MA Planning Board has recommended the city develop a "green technology campus," saying it would be the city’s best bet for economic development.

In a written report to Greenfield’s Town Council and Mayor Christine Forgey, board members named two prospective sites for the campus or “eco-industrial park." They are an 80-acre parcel owned by Mackin Construction Co., abutting the existing I-91 Industrial Park off Route 2, and the former Bendix industrial site of 17.3 acres, at the end of Laurel Street, which the city recently acquired after its previous owner failed to pay back taxes.

Businesses the Planning Board wants to see involved include those providing alternative energy, producing sustainable building products, providing alternative fuels, and production of natural foods.

Biotech is high on the list of prospective new uses for the former Bendix property, a priority of city officials. The site was last used by Repal, a Vermont-based company that rebuilt storage and carrying pallets for resale. Repal vacated the site, and the city went after the Illinois-based mortgage holder that took over for Repal, leading to the land-taking.

The Bendix site has natural gas lines feeding it — an advantage over the Mackin site, though the latter is larger and could allow a larger tech park.

Credit Card Company Prepares to Make Way for J&J’s Ortho Biotech in Horsham

Credit card company, Advanta, is expected to vacate the Horsham, PA, headquarters of Johnson & Johnson-owned Centocor, where another J&J unit, Ortho Biotech, will shift 260 jobs from its Ortho Biotech unit in Bridgewater, NJ.

Sancilio & Company Opens Expanded Rivera Beach Contract Manufacturing Facility

Sancilio & Company has opened an expanded 2,000 square-foot contract manufacturing facility adjacent to its pharmaceutical laboratory in Rivera Beach, FL.

The GMP facility specializes in small batch manufacturing of tablets and capsules as well as packaging and labeling services. The expanded facility — which is FDA registered, and licensed for DEA Schedule 2, 3 and 4 — enables Sancillo’s pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and nutraceutical clients to access a range of analytical services that includes formulation development, quality control, quality assurance and regulatory affairs.

In addition to Rivera Beach, Sancillo maintains operations in Shanghai’s Pudong District, and in Montville Township, NJ.

Boehringer Ingelheim Formed a Production Alliance with Chinese Manufacturer Hisoar

Under the terms of the deal, financial details of which are not being released, Taizhou-headquartered Hisoar will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for Boehringer’s range of pipeline drug candidates and commercially available products.

The privately-owned German drugmaker said that it would carry out further processing of the APIs at facilities in its home territory, Italy, Spain and the U.S.

Boehringer said that it will provide support and technical expertise for Hisoar’s manufacturing operations. In return, Hisoar has agreed to install new production facilities at its existing plant in Chuannan. These are expected to be fully operational early next year.

Hisoar Seeks Further International Deals

Established in 1966, Hisoar specialises in the production, sale and distribution of chemical intermediates and APIs to the drug industry. The firm’s headquarters in Taizhou, Zhejiang province are located at the heart of one of the country’s economic development zones.

Hisoar has production facilities in Waisha, Chuannan and Quanfeng that are good manufacturing practice (GMP) compliant to international standards.

In addition several of the products that the firm makes have passed the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) COS authentication and PMDA standards for Europe, America, Japan, as well as several other major drug markets.

Hisoar has set its sights on expanding its international presence and hopes that its deal with Boehringer is the first of many such agreements.

Major Expansion at Coating Place Completed

Microencapsulation specialist Coating Place Inc has just completed a major expansion of its contract manufacturing capacity in Wisconsin, U.S.

The 85,000 sq. ft. unit in Verona consists of 35,000 sq. ft. of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) production suites, 40,000 sq. ft of warehousing with refrigerated storage, and 10,000 sq. ft. of engineering and maintenance space.

Central to the expansion is the addition of extrusion/spheronization and Chilsonation equipment to complement the company’s existing capabilities in pharmaceutical grade Wurster (bottom spray) fluid bed coating, used to encapsulate solid materials such as powders, granules, crystals and capsules.

Using extrusion equipment, granulated materials are processed into spaghetti-like strings, and are often used to eliminate dust in formulations and generate a material that is easier to work with and has superior properties. Spheronization refers to a method of processing granulated or extruded materials into small pellets, and is used for similar purposes.

Chilsonation refers to a technique in which materials are compacted between grooved rollers to form sheets, which can then be milled into a dense powder.

Addition of these processes “can significantly reduce the production time and cost for all new products,” said the company.

The commercial expansion of the facility will also include large commercial scale Wurster fluid bed coaters which can accommodate batch sizes between 125-600kg using both aqueous and solvent based coating systems.

And in an effort to be more environmentally friendly, Coating Place says it has also installed a new plant wide regenerative thermal oxidizer system that is 99.9 per cent clean burning and will recover more heat for use in the facility.

The new facility adds to Coating Place’s existing 100,000 sq. ft. facilities and should take the headcount at the company from 90 to around 130 people when fully staffed.

The Wurster coating technique was developed at the University of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), and was licensed to Coating Place in the mid-1970s. Since then, the company has expanded to provide contract formulation development, technology transfer, scale-up and commercial manufacturing with analytical support, handling solvent, aqueous, and hot melt formulations.

bioMerieux Launches New Cleanroom Testing Range

bioMerieux hopes that its new specially-packaged growth media products will help it “clean up” in the pharmaceutical industry’s lucrative sterility testing market

The French firm’s Clean Room range comprises ready-to-use trypcase soy broth and thioglycollate media, packaged in double wrapped bottles that have undergone ethylene oxide sterilization.

The new packaging format, which is compliant with the requirements of the European, US and Japanese pharmacopoeias, is available in a wide range of colour-coded, screw-top or septum closure containers.

The products have been specifically designed for application in isolator and clean room settings.

bioMerieux says that because its product eliminates the need for bottle cleaning during microbial analysis operations, it can help pharmaceutical firms reduce manufacturing costs, expedite regulatory submissions and shorten product release times.

In a statement, Alexandre Merieux, corporate vice president of industrial microbiology at the firm, said that the sterility testing was a core goal for the company. The ever present demand for safe pharmaceutical products means that pharmaceutical manufacturers are under pressure to ensure that the drugs they produce are free of contamination to an even greater degree than is expected of the food industry.

Overall, sales were up 9 per cent to €528 million, despite a dip of 0.3 per cent to €109m in revenue derived from North America. bioMerieux’s operations in Asia-Pacific and Latin-America grew 13 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, with Europe, its most lucrative market generating €327m, up 11 per cent on the first half of last year.

Japan’s Shionogi Buys U.S. Drugmaker Sciele Pharma

Japan’s Shionogi is paying $1.4 billion (€959 million) for U.S. drugmaker Sciele Pharma as part of a plan to strengthen its sales position in the country’s $286 billion a year drug market.

Shionogi’s move is the latest in a raft of acquisitions by Japanese firms that has seen Takeda, Daiichi Sankyo and Eisai snap up US pharmaceutical firms. In Japan, where drug sales generate $65bn a year according to IMS Health data, overall growth has slowed to just 3.8 percent.

Japanese acquisitions in the US market amount to more than $42bn in the last few years according to Thomson Financial. This suggests that although sales in emerging economies like Mexico, Brazil and Russia are expanding at a faster rate, the sheer scale of the US drug market still makes it an attractive proposition for overseas firms.

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement Sciele, which will continue to operate from its base in Atlanta, will become Shionogi’s second wholly-owned subsidiary in the country after Shionogi USA, which was founded in 2001.

At present however, Shionogi generates just 18 percent of its turnover overseas, largely though sales of the cholesterol-lowering Crestor which is marketed under license by AstraZeneca. The Japanese firm hopes that its new purchase will help it increase the turnover contribution from ex-Japanese markets.

Rosetta Expands Lab Space

Rosetta’s recently completed $2.9 million acquisition of Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-certified laboratory Parkway Clinical Laboratories.

With their first microRNA [diagnostic] approved for clinical use and the acquisition of a CLIA-certified laboratory, Rosetta Genomics is in the final stage of transforming into a commercial diagnostics company.

Parkway specializes in conducting clinical diagnostic tests and handles in excess of 170,000 specimens a year. The acquisition will “allow Rosetta Genomics to expedite and gain full control over in-house development, validation, commercialization, marketing, and sales of our microRNA-based diagnostic tests.

Rosetta has expanded Bensalem, Penn.-based Parkway’s operations by adding a second facility in Philadelphia, in which Rosetta is installing its proprietary microRNA-based diagnostics technology. Rosetta anticipates co-marketing miRview Squamous through this facility with partner Columbia University Medical Center.

Before acquiring Parkway, Rosetta established an arrangement with CUMC under which the institution would commercialize miRview Squamous, miRview Mets, and miRview Meso.

Rosetta having its own CLIA lab will enable Rosetta to jointly market miRview Squamous with CUMC.

Looking ahead, the Israeli company said that it expects to burn roughly $6 million in funding its operations through 2008.

The University of Texas will Expand Biomedical Engineering Department

The University of Texas at Austin will expand its Biomedical Engineering department with a $55 million building that will house interdisciplinary research programs in bioinformatics, molecular imaging, genotyping research, pharmacological studies, and more.

The building, which includes a dozen wet labs, eight tissue-culture rooms, and four computational labs, was bankrolled by the state’s Permanent University Fund, by $3 million from the Whitaker Foundation, and $5 million from the Cockrell School.

The 141,000-square-foot, six-story building will include laboratory, classroom, and administrative spaces, and it will function as a “gateway” to the University’s planned northern campus life sciences expansion, which will include the James R. Moffett Molecular Biology Building, a neural and molecular science building, an experimental science building, and the College of Pharmacy buildings.

The Biomedical Engineering program is a joint venture between the University, the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the University Of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Two floors of the building will be occupied by the College of Natural Sciences and by the College of Pharmacy.

The University did not specify when the new building will open.

Lawrence Technological University to Expand Life Science Programs

Lawrence Technological University in southeastern Michigan has received an anonymous $3 million gift to expand its life sciences program, to fund research programs and establish an institute of molecular medicine, and to support research programs that include functional proteomics studies of type II diabetes.

LTU biology Professor Hsiao-Ping Moore, who studies proteomics and cell signaling, is planning the expansion.

Separately, Moore is using federal funds in collaboration with Wayne State University scientist James Granneman to study the proteins involved in the links between type II diabetes and obesity. That research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association, and Veterans Administration Hospitals.

In addition to the anonymous gift, the university also will use a $1 million endowment to support the life sciences and biomedical engineering expansion.

LTU was not immediately available to provide more information about the origin of the anonymous gift or the endowment, or more specifics about its planned molecular medicine institute.

Pfizer Confirms Little Island Closure

U.S. drug giant Pfizer has confirmed that it is to close its facility in Little Island, Ireland with the loss of 180 manufacturing positions, after it failed to find a buyer for the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plant.

Pfizer’s move has intensified media speculation about its other operations in the country, in particular the manufacturing facility in Loughbeg, Ringaskiddy, for which the firm is also seeking a buyer.

Tara Delaney, a spokesperson for Pfizer Ireland, told in-PharmaTechnologist that the Little Island roles “will be phased out between October 2008 and the end of the 2009 year.”

Delaney went on to says that: “We are currently recruiting for our new biologics facility [in Shanbally] and colleagues have an opportunity to apply for these roles. There are however, different skill sets required for the new bio plant compared to traditional API manufacture.”

She added that: “We are continuing to actively market Loughbeg, but given commercial sensitivities we are not in a position to go into much further detail, other than to say we have had a number of interested parties and are involved in ongoing dialogue as we seek to sell the facility as a going concern.”

“We have some time yet to sell Loughbeg and will investigate every opportunity. If we are unsuccessful we would need to close the plant by the end of 2009/early 2010,” Delaney added.

Gilead to Add 1,900 Jobs over Next 10 Years

US biotechnology firm Gilead is to double R&D capacity at its base in Foster City, California over the next ten years.

The extensive plans, which will create around 1,900 new jobs, will add laboratory, manufacturing and pilot plant space at the site. Construction is expected to begin early in 2009 when an environmental impact study, which is due to start next month, is completed.

Gilead said that the expansion is part of its efforts to broaden its product portfolio, which is currently focussed on anti-virals for the treatment of HIV and hepatitis B.

Clarcor to Create 425 Jobs at Jeffersonville Plant

Clarcor Air Filtration Products says it will create 425 new manufacturing jobs as it moves to consolidate its production operations at a new 450,000 square foot facility in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The firm, which makes industrial air filters for the laboratory and pharmaceutical sectors among others, has spent $8.5m to acquire the lease for the plant, which is located in the city’s River Ridge commerce centre.

MD Logistics Planning Distribution Plant in Indiana

Supply chain specialist MD Logistics is planning to set up a further distribution plant in Indiana, U.S., specifically targeted at pharmaceutical customers.

The $1 million refrigerated warehouse, to be constructed in Plainfield near Indianapolis, will cover 15,000 sq. ft. and add to an existing 22,000 sq. ft. facility sited in the same town.

The unit will employ around 75 staff and be operational by 2009, reaching full capacity by 2012, said MD Logistics.

The facility will be built to U. Food and Drug Administration and current Good Manufacturing Processes (cGMP) standards, and will serve the company's growing pharmaceutical distribution business, said Mark Sell, principal and owner of MD Logistics.

Nearly 50 contract service providers operate in Indiana and the pharmaceutical industry in the state employs nearly 8,500 staff, according to BioCrossroads, Indiana's public-private initiative to grow the life sciences. Heading the list of outsourcing specialists in the area is now Covance, which earlier this month announced a $50m deal to buy Lilly's Greenfield site and take over responsibility for 260 staff, as well as securing a 10-year, $1.6bn drug development contract.

In a report published earlier this year, Biocrossroads notes that Indiana is one of the few areas of the US that has the access to skilled staff and infrastructure to tap into the growth in outsourcing currently taking place across the pharmaceutical sector.

Storage and logistics is a focus area for the state’s contract service providers. Along with MD Logistics, other local players in this area include BioConvergence, BioStorage, Fedex, Krauter Solutions, Schenker and Sentry Logistic Solutions.

MD Logistics, along with its sister companies MD Packaging and MD Express, provides contract warehousing, inventory management, fulfilment, distribution, packaging, transportation, and global freight forwarding.

Avesthagen Breaks Ground For Bangalore Corporate Headquarters, R&D Facility

Avesthagen has broken ground on a new corporate headquarters and R&D campus that will house the company’s lab and research facilities, work stations, auditorium, service block, and other facilities. The 14-story, 400,000-square-foot campus will cost Rs 160 crore ($40 million) to build and will rise on a 2.6-acre plot in the International Technology Park Bangalore. The new campus is expected to be ready by June 2010.

“The center will provide a fully integrated technology platform and turnkey solutions for the production of various products to the biotech industry and the scientific community,” Villoo Morawala-Patell, Avesthagen’s founder and chief medical director, said in a statement.

Avesthagen is developing the site with Singapore-based Ascendas, a developer of technology campuses.

Founded in 2001, Avesthagen is the developer of an integrated systems biology technology platform designed to facilitate preventive and personalized healthcare.

Preclinical Research Supplies Firm Plans Headquarters in Mount Comfort

A real estate firm representing Indianapolis-based life sciences firm Harlan Sprague Dawley announced last week the company would occupy about 77,000 square feet within a 245,000-square-foot building located in Mount Comfort, IN.

Harlan Sprague Dawley is a supplier of preclinical research tools and services in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemical, industrial chemical, and food industries. The company sells products that range from laboratory animals to specialized instruments for microbial studies.

A division associated with the company already operates a smaller facility in Cumberland, Ind.

Mount Comfort is one of two sites under consideration by another life-sci company, Elanco, as the site of a new headquarters; the other is Greenfield, Ind.

Elanco, the animal health unit of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company, is studying sites in Greenfield, on the northwest corner of the Ind. 9 interchange on I-70; and in Mount Comfort, just across the road from the airport near the headquarters of Freije Treatment Systems.

Canadian-Owned Akela Phar Signs Lease for Austin Facility

Akela Phar, a Montreal-based drug development company focused on the inhalation and pain markets, has disclosed that on July 28 it entered into a lease for a 69,872-square-foot facility in Austin, TX.

The facility will allow Akela Phar to accommodate growing demand for its current service offering, as well as expand into commercial scale manufacturing, the company said in a statement.

Mass. College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Buys $1.5 Million

The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has purchased the 19,500-square-foot 36-40 Foster St. in downtown Worcester, MA for $1.5 million.

The two-story office building was formerly occupied by Palley Office Supply and Bank of New England. The college bought the 43-year-old building from Protocol Realty, which previously used the building as a call center.

MCPMS also has campuses in Boston and Manchester, NH.

Chesapeake Pharmaceutical Packaging Wins $175,000 Grantt Move Within Long Island

The board of directors of New York’s Empire State Development Corp. last week approved a $175,000 Economic Development Fund grant for Chesapeake Pharmaceutical Packaging, toward the expansion of its pharma packaging operations.

The company will use the grant toward its recent relocation within Long Island, from Lake Success, NY, to Hicksville, NY, that the company announced in February. In return for the state money, Chesapeake has promised to add 30 new employees to its current work force of 129 people.

Chesapeake Pharmaceutical Packaging is a unit of Chesapeake Corp. of Richmond, VA.

Chesapeake's pharmaceutical and healthcare packaging business supplies folding cartons, labels, and leaflets to pharmaceutical companies through a network of 25 pharmaceutical packaging plants across Europe, the United States and Asia.

In addition to Lake Success, where the company maintains a manufacturing operation and administrative offices, Chesapeake has North American operations in Raleigh, NC, and Lexington, NC.

"This expansion will substantially increase our capacity for pharmaceutical package leaflets in North America," said Michael Cheetham, Chesapeake's vice president of pharmaceutical and healthcare packaging, in a press release. "We will be installing a new sheet-fed press and large-format folders in our new location prior to moving our existing Lake Success equipment. That will set the stage for a smooth transition into the new Hicksville plant."

Chicago Technology Park Biotech Incubator Lease Extended One Year

The University of Illinois board of trustees has extended for one year UI’s lease with the Illinois Medical District to run a biotechnology incubator in the Chicago Technology Park Research Center.

Since 1992 the Medical District – a collaboration of UI and three other medical centers – has leased the building for $10 to operate the incubator for the UI and promote biotechnology growth. UI built the laboratory with state money to serve as rental space for biotechnology start-up firms.

The lease is being extended for just one year as the parties work out cost-sharing arrangements for the incubator. The medical district spends upwards of $400,000 a year to run the facility, and the state has not contributed to that cost for several years.

The state of Illinois initially provided $3 million a year to support the medical district's operations, which include the 56-acre technology park and other facilities covering 560 acres near the UI medical center. But state funding has essentially evaporated, and the district is now self-supporting.

Xcelience Expands Packaging Capabilities

Xcelience has expanded its packaging capabilities by buying a TF1 Blister Packaging Thermoformer machine from Micron PharmaWorks.

The new equipment can produce up to a 100 blisters per minute and can be adapted to create a range of dosage form shapes and sizes.

Xcelience believes the new machine will help it better serve clients’ demand for manufacturing and packaging of clinical trial materials.

Ted Koontz, Xcelience’s director of operations, said: "The TF1 is extremely flexible and is ideally suited for blister packaging of clinical trial materials. It is capable of thermoforming a wide variety of pharmaceutical films as well as Cold-Form Foil.

Accubraille Installed in UK Plant

Medica Packaging has installed Bobst’s Accubraille system for embossing Braille onto pharmaceutical packaging. It is the first time the system has been installed at a plant in the UK.

Bobost claims its Accubraille is easier to operate and does not suffer from some of the technical issues associated with conventional diecutter Braille machines.

By 2010 all pharmaceutical packaging destined for sale within the EU will have to come with information in Braille.

3S ‘Practically Inimitable’ Counterfeit Solution

3S Simons Security Systems GmbH claims its Secutag technology can secure pharmaceutical companies’ primary or secondary packaging, the package inserts and the traceability codes against counterfeiting.

The company says Secutag has the world’s “smallest micro color-code particles” and is accepted as evidence by international courts. Owing to the technical challenges posed by manufacturing the technology 3S believes it is “practically inimitable”.

By combining Secutag with an RFID or data-matrix code, 3S claims the traceability of the entire delivery or of the single packages can be guaranteed, with the products authenticity checked in existing databases around the world.

ISPE Facility of the Year Awards

ISPE is seeking submissions for its 2009 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA), which seeks to recognize and spread innovative approaches to many aspects of manufacturing plant design.

Newly constructed or renovated facilities are eligible to apply and awards will be given to plants that excel in the following categories; process innovation, project execution, equipment innovation, facility integration, sustainability and operational excellence.

Clive Mullins, chairman of the Facility of the Year Awards committee, said: “Receiving recognition as a Facility of the Year Award winner generates unsurpassed opportunities for manufacturers and their key supporting organizations to showcase their ingenuity.

“This program really motivates professionals in the pharmaceutical industry to share best practices within the global community.”

Since its inception five years ago FOYA has attracted entries from over 20 countries and has awarded facilities from nine different nations.

Israel Gaining PIC/S Membership

Israel is close to being admitted into the Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Scheme (PIC/S).

The news follows joint inspections by the Israeli Health Ministry and PIC/S on behalf of the European Union. Israel is hoping that gaining entry to the PIC/S will increase exports of medications and raise manufacturing standards.

PIC/S are international bodies that seek to foster constructive cooperation between pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure adherence to good manufacturing practices (GMP). If admitted, Israel will become the 35 nation in the PIC/S.

USP Opens its First Site in Brazil

The US Pharmacopeia (USP) has continued to expand its global reach by opening a site in São Paulo, Brazil; its first in Latin America.

From this new site the USP will assist pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare professionals to ensure the quality and safety of medicines throughout Latin America.

The USP now has five bases around the world, with the São Paulo site following on from the opening of its Chinese and Indian facilities in 2006.

Brazil’s pharmaceutical industry has enjoyed increasing levels of investment from both local and foreign companies. As one of the BRIC nations, the others being Russia, India and China, big pharma has been paying increasing attention to the nation and Latin America as a whole.

Novartis Constructing a New Vaccine Plant in Brazil

Novartis is investing $500m in the construction a new vaccine plant in Pernambuco, Brazil, following the $100m expansion of its existing facility.

However, the USP’s presence in the region should prove more beneficial to Latin American pharmaceutical companies by helping them adhere to international standards, enabling increased exports.

At present the combined pharmaceutical trade deficit of Latin American countries is $7bn, according to an Espicom Business Intelligence report published in March.

Brazil and India Increase Ties

In addition to the USP establishing itself in the nation, collaboration between India and Brazil will soon see the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) set up in the region.

By collaborating the nations hope to transfer knowledge, skills and technology related to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.

In particular the Brazilian government has stated it will provide incentives to encourage foreign companies to set up operations or partnerships in the country.

This increased collaboration may help ease the pressures on Indian pharmaceutical companies that were created by a 14 per cent rise in Brazilian import tax that was implemented last year.

Realty Group Plans to Build a New Life-Sciences Incubator in Agoura Hills.

Amgen’s large-scale restructuring in California last year cost hundreds of drug researchers their jobs, and now a pair of industry veterans wants to ensure that the laid-off talent stays in Southern California’s “Highway 101” biotech corridor.

Brent Reinke, a lawyer who works with biotech startups, and Realty Bancorp Equities, a regional commercial real-estate developer, are planning to build a new life-sciences incubator in lab-space-poor Agoura Hills.

Their aim is to convert a vacant industrial building owned by RBE into the Gold Coast Bio Center. The incubator, located nine miles southeast of Amgen’s headquarters in Thousand Oaks, would welcome its first tenants next year.

Thousand Oaks and Agoura Hills are northern Los Angeles suburbs located within the “101 Corridor,” named for the US freeway that links Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles counties and links the state’s two life-sci mega-clusters: the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego region.

Both regions have benefited to a degree from the stream of former Amgen executives; who have launched their own bio businesses, but the area in and around Thousand Oaks has very little available space for additional life-sciences startups. The incubator is designed to help address that need, as well as boost the 101 Corridor’s life-sci region, Reinke told BioRegion News last week.

A consortium of four startups led by current and former Amgen staffers is among those that have expressed interest in the Gold Coast Bio Center.

In addition, RBE is constructing a new 80,000-square-foot R&D building on land in front of the site planned for the Gold Coast Bio Center. Next door, BRE owns a 100,000-square-foot building entirely leased to video game developer THQ.

Jacobsen said his company is “already in discussion with a number of “prospective incubator tenants interested in the Gold Coast Bio Center, and with several area universities, which he declined to name.

LA Region has Two Incubators

The LA Region has two incubators, neither in nor near Agoura Hills:

Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative, a public-private nonprofit group that operates in its namesake city a 3,000-square-foot facility that houses five startups. The collaborative’s 12 partners include CalTech, CalState, Pasadena City College, Convergent Ventures, Entretech, and the city of Pasadena.

Momentum Biosciences, a private biotechnology, medical device and nanotechnology commercialization venture of UCLA and CalTech. Momentum houses three companies within a 10,000-square-foot wet lab-equipped space it opened in 2006 in Culver City, CA.

While SoCalBio’s web site map shows 89 life sciences companies based in the 101 corridor’s suburban counties of Ventura and Santa Barbara – including Amgen and five other businesses in Thousand Oaks, the map shows not a single life-sci company based in Agoura Hills. Reinke and RBE hope to change that by transforming the vacant 29901 Agoura Road into a life-sci incubator.

The 38,000-square-foot R&D building has been vacant for about a year, since Line 6, a maker of digital musical instruments, moved out and relocated five miles east, to Calabasas. RBE would renovate the building to accommodate wet labs, both common labs and several separate individual labs with adjoining offices.

Schering-Plough Expands Presence in China

Schering-Plough has expanded its presence in China by establishing Shanghai Schering-Plough Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. A wholly-owned operation based in Shanghai, the unit was formed through the acquisition of shares of its former joint venture partners. SP entered into an agreement in 1994 with Shanghai Pharmaceutical Industry Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd., to manufacture, market and distribute allergy and skincare products.

SP in China serves Chinese health care professionals, customers and other stakeholders in the areas of allergy/respiratory, cardiovascular, central nervous system, skin care, oncology, infectious diseases, and women's health.

Spain’s First Therapeutic Protein Plant Due in 2009

Spanish biotech company, 3P Biopharmaceuticals, is on course to complete its therapeutic protein manufacturing plant in Noain, Spain at the start of 2009.

The plant will be the first in Spain to produce therapeutic proteins for laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. An investment of €15 million has been made to construct the plant.

Isogen Chooses Delaware for Facility

U.S.-based Isogen has signaled its intent to build a $115m manufacturing facility in Delaware, which could generate up to 150 jobs.

Construction of the 200,000 sq ft facility is due to commence next year, following completion of the $2.5m design and site preparation process. Completion is penciled in for 2010.

The facility is intended to serve what Isogen believes is a niche in pharmaceutical outsourcing, the small to medium-scale manufacturing of injectable drugs for clinical trials and early commercial sales.

Isogen’s decision to set up in Delaware is being viewed as a coup by the state.

Isogen is currently leasing space in DuPont's Stine-Haskell Research Center and is planning to relocate its headquarters to the site in January.

University College London (UCL) to Get New Neuroscience Center

An ambitious 'Janelia Farm-style' neuroscience institute to lead international efforts in understanding the brain and behavior at the level of basic neural circuits is being planned for London.

University College London (UCL) will host the new centre, after beating rival universities Oxford and Cambridge. The £140-million (US$261-million) institute will be funded by the Wellcome Trust, the largest UK research charity, and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, founded by David Sainsbury, a British politician and businessman.

The aim of the centre will be to "elucidate how neural circuits carry out information processing that underpins behavior", according to the charities' letter to the universities competing for the project, sent earlier this year. The institute will take an interdisciplinary approach, combining state-of-the-art molecular and cellular biology with computational modeling.

UCL may have beaten competitors because its 400-strong neuroscience department is one of the most productive in the country. And it already has a world-class computational neuroscience centre, also funded by the Gatsby foundation.

The institute will reportedly work mainly with model organisms such as mice, fruitflies and nematodes. It will employ newly developed techniques such as optogenetics, which allows researchers to switch genetically modified neurons on and off using light. It is believed that the institute will eventually host some 12–15 research groups at a new £60-million building on Huntley Street in Bloomsbury, near both the Wellcome Trust and UCL's central campus.

The research at the new institute will focus on topics "we're all interested in at the moment", says Wolf Singer, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany. Last month, two German pharmaceutical entrepreneurs, Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann, donated €200 million (US$295 million) for a new Max Planck cognitive neuroscience research centre in Frankfurt. European research institutes have primarily been government funded — the involvement of donors such as Sainsbury and the Strüngmanns will help Europe compete better with America, Singer says.

The size and approach of the London project has led many neuroscientists to compare it to Janelia Farm, a biological institute in Ashburn, Virginia, that is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Since opening in 2006, the institute has taken an interdisciplinary approach to imaging and modeling neural circuits. The new UCL institute "sounds like Janelia East", says Karel Svoboda, a neuroscientist at Janelia.

The institute could be built by 2011.

Japanese Firm Discloses 'World's Largest' Plant Factory of Fairy Angel Inc, "Angel Farm Fukui"

Fairy Angel Inc, a venture company specializing in vegetable farming, disclosed part of its new plant factory when it had an opening ceremony commemorating the factory's completion August 29, 2008.

The plant factory, "Angel Farm Fukui," is located in Mihama-cho, Fukui Prefecture, Japan.

It is a "completely-controlled" factory, in which the temperature, humidity, light illumination level and nutrients are monitored and controlled inside a cleanroom isolated from the external area. Its operations began in July 2008. The current operating rate is "approximately 30 percent, but it will be in full operation in December 2008," said Kenji Emoto, CEO of Fairy Angel.

Fairy Angel has two other completely-controlled plant factories, one in Kyoto and the other in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, and they are already in operation. Thus, Angel Farm Fukui is the company's third plant factory.

The new factory has a land area of 142,344 sq. ft. (13,229m2) and 40,328 sq. ft. (3,748m2) of floor space. The total construction cost is roughly ¥1.5 billion (approx US$13.8 million), including the land acquisition cost. The factory is one of the largest completely-controlled plant factories in the world, producing three million plants per year under full operation.

The cleanroom of the new factory was constructed by Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd. Its clean degree, which is classified as 100,000, is ten times that of general food factories, according to Fairy Angel.

In respect to air conditioning, the temperature is controlled to +25°C in the daytime (16 hours) and +18°C in the nighttime (eight hours). Fluorescent lamps are used as light sources and light intensity and irradiation time are controlled depending on the vegetables to be grown.

Fairy Angel has been developing a lighting system composed of solar cells and LEDs jointly with Mitsubishi Chemical Corp and lighting device manufacturer CCS Inc, targeting plant factories. They will start a joint experiment of a lighting system at Angel Farm Fukui at the end of October 2008.

Eight kinds of vegetables, including green leaf, sanchu and frillice, will be grown in the factory. The period from seeding to shipment will be 35 to 50 days, depending on the vegetable. For each kind of vegetable, the growing period can be reduced by nearly half, compared with outdoor farming, according to Fairy Angel.

Forest City Science + Technology Group

Forest City Science + Technology Group broke ground last week on the nearly $100 million first phase of a project to build more than 5 million square feet of new life-science research space in a suburban city of Denver by 2033.

Project developers and Aurora, Colo., officials also hope it will help revitalize a key commercial section of the city that has struggled in the 13 years since the US Army began shutting down its Fitzsimons Army Medical Center.

The first phase of the new Colorado Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimons will include a $16 million, 65,000-square-foot life-sci building; a 163-room Hyatt Place limited-service hotel/conference center; and a 175,000-square-foot office building. The projects are expected to be completed by the fall of 2010, according to the developer.

Long-term, Forest City will build a 6 million square-foot mix of uses, “a majority” of which will be life sciences space, Jim Chrisman, a senior vice president with the developer, told BioRegion News last week.

“I would guess that 85 to 90 percent” of the 6 million square feet, or between 5.1 million and 5.4 million square feet of space, “will be life science,” Chrisman said in an interview.

The developers will immediately begin constructing the office building and hotel, but not the life-sci building, which won’t start construction until the developer signs a lease with an anchor tenant. Forest City said it is in talks with several undisclosed anchor tenant prospects and hopes to begin building the life-sci facility by year’s end.

“If we get it off the ground this year, it would open next year. It would probably open in late 2009,” Chrisman said.

One potential source of additional tenants for the bio building, he added, is the cluster of some 20 University of Colorado at Denver spinouts and other startups currently housed in two existing buildings totaling 80,000 square feet managed by the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority, a partnership between the city of Aurora and the university.

Until the Colorado Science + Technology Park gets finished, companies that outgrow the Colorado Bioscience Park Aurora, completed in 1999, and the Bioscience East building, completed in 2006, typically relocate out of the city to wherever they can find R&D and lab space. To date their options are buildings west toward Denver or east along Interstate 70, closer to Boulder.

The best known startup to leave Aurora is the biopharmaceutical company GlobeImmune. In 2005, the firm moved out of a 10,000-square-foot space at Bioscience Park Center, its home since 2001, into 30,000 square feet in Louisville, 10 minutes east of the Boulder foothills.

In addition to the universities, Colorado’s life-sci cluster includes about 430 businesses, among them biofuel startups and biotech, pharma, and medical device companies, according to CBSA.

Life-sci growth has helped propel the state’s overall tech sector to a third-place ranking, behind only Maryland and Massachusetts, in the Milken Institute’s annual State Technology and Science Index, released in June. Colorado ranked fourth last year among states generating the most economic activity per dollar of funding, according to Families USA’s Global Heath Initiative.

Intent on growing the state’s life sciences industry further, Gov. Bill Ritter in April signed into law a measure awarding $26.5 million over five years in grants to Colorado life sciences startups and research institutions seeking to commercialize their discoveries. Companies can receive up to a maximum $250,000 grant, while institutions are limited to $150,000.

“Out of our universities, we’re spinning out 15 to 20 companies a year,” Shapard told BRN. “There is startup space at the incubator at Fitzsimons, but once these companies grow to a certain size, there are not many places for them to go.

The Forest City project “will provide much, much needed lab space for the companies that have gotten their first rounds of capital,” Shapard added. “For the past 10 years, we have needed something like this.”

Forest City is pursuing three types of tenants: University startups that have outgrown their incubator space; expansion-minded regional bio businesses eager to locate across from the university; and international life-sci companies interested in a U.S. presence.

“We’re working all three of those angles,” Chrisman said. “They could be anywhere, probably, from a couple of thousand square feet up to 100,000 square feet.”

How quickly the life-sci building fills will determine how soon Forest City breaks ground on additional research space, according to Chrisman. Buildings will be mostly four to five stories tall, compared with the taller buildings Forest City has developed in more urban markets like its flagship University Park at MIT in Cambridge, MA.

Fitzsimons’ life-science space will be primarily built for research use, though the Forest City site could accommodate smaller-scale “fill/finish” drug-production sites that fill and package therapeutics for drug makers. Large-scale manufacturing will not likely be pursued for the campus, Chrisman said.

Forest City, which owns more than 2 million square feet of life-sci and technology space nationwide and more than 8 million square feet in planning or development phases, may build additional incubator space in Aurora if there is market demand, Chrisman said. The project is being developed by a unit of Forest City Enterprises, a publicly traded $10.5 billion developer headquartered in Cleveland.

Asking rent for the Forest City project is in the $21-$22 range per square foot triple net, and a base $40 per square foot “tenant-improvement” allowance toward the cost of fitting out space for life-sciences work. Chrisman said the company will offer additional allowances depending on the tenant and how reusable the work is if the tenant leaves.

In addition to the life-sci building, the first phase, set to be completed by the fall of 2010, includes a $32 million Hyatt Place hotel/conference center; an 18,000-square-foot freestanding structure that the Fitzsimons Federal Credit Union will build for itself; and a $40 million, 175,000-square-foot office building.

Anchoring the office building will be University Physicians Inc., the business operations and administrative support unit for physicians at the UC Denver School of Medicine. While UP is expected someday to occupy the entire building, a small portion of it will be subleased short-term by the Children’s Hospital.

The CU system will also benefit from the first phase of the project through Hyatt Place, which would in part host university medical conferences. The hotel-conference center is being built by a separate developer, Gateway Hospitality Group of Twinsburg, Ohio. Future plans call for a “full-service” second hotel and “maybe a health club,” Chrisman said.

The research campus will be adjacent to around 18,000 square feet of small shops and 550 mid-rise residential units being developed by the Pauls Corp. as part of The Square at Fitzsimons. The Fitzsimons site is adjacent to the 4,700-acre Forest City Stapleton mixed-use redevelopment of the former Stapleton Airport, which closed in 1995 when the Denver International Airport opened.

The Stapleton site is master planned for 12,000 housing units; 3 million square feet of retail space; 1,117 acres of parks and open space; some 130 acres of recreational facilities; up to 10 million square feet of office space; and a new permanent home for the Denver School of Science and Technology, a public charter high school established in 2004.

“The Aurora project is very singular in its vision with life-science businesses. But those businesses need places to shop and eat, and their employees need places to live and recreate,” Chrisman said. “Stapleton provides all those things. We think of it really as one large project. They do share a common boundary.”

Forest City was selected by the redevelopment authority in November 2005 to begin talks to redevelop a 184-acre, authority-owned section of the 578-acre former Army medical center within a new “Fitzsimons life sciences district.”

Four months later, the authority and Forest City signed a 30-year memorandum of understanding allowing Forest City to lease land from FRA to develop life-science facilities. In return, the authority will receive fixed annual payments and an equity share of net cash flow from the buildings to be constructed.

Within the former Army med center, 230 acres are controlled by the university and consists of the Children's Hospital and the Anschutz Medical Campus, home to several medical facilities, including the University of Colorado’s schools of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing; the University of Colorado Hospital; UC Denver’s Health Sciences Center; and research facilities.

Since the Army’s retreat, the university has moved several facilities of its Denver campus to the Fitzsimons site, making it the larger of UC-Denver’s two campuses. The university facilities are slated to be joined by a new US Department of Veterans Affairs hospital and nursing home for aging veterans, both now in planning phases.

Nine Centers in the United States receive $280 Million to Hunt for Useful Biochemicals

Nine academic institutes in the United States have been selected to host an ambitious and controversial chemical biology initiative. The institutes will form a network that aims to bring to academia the chemical-screening programs that were once considered the exclusive domain of pharmaceutical companies.

In total, the nine centers are set to receive approximately US$280 million over the next four years as part of the US National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Molecular Libraries Program. The centers will use advanced high-throughput methods to screen the program's library of 300,000 compounds in search of those that might be useful in treating disease or for studying basic biology.

The new network, announced on 2 September, comes on the heels of a pilot project that was launched in 2005 and included ten screening facilities. Each centre accepted proposals for screens from academic and industry-based researchers. "The aim was to provide the scientific community with the types of resources we could only find in large pharmaceutical companies before," says program director Carson Loomis.

This pilot project yielded more than 60 compounds – often referred to as 'probes' - with a wide range of uses. One of them, 4-phenyl-1,2,5-oxadiazole-3-carbonitrile-2-oxide, has shown preclinical promise as a possible new treatment for the parasite disease schistosomiasis1. But Loomis is quick to point out that drug discovery is not the goal of the Molecular Libraries Program, and the program does not undertake the extensive testing needed before a candidate reaches clinical testing. Many of the probes generated by the program are used for basic biological research, he notes.

In all cases, data from each compound must be deposited in PubChem, a publicly accessible chemical database.

But the pilot program has been criticized. Some chemical biologists felt it drew too much funding during an era of tight NIH budgets. Meanwhile, some of the compounds isolated from the pilot project are probably not powerful enough to be effective, notes Stephen Frye, a chemical biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Many database entries also did not contain enough chemical information about the compound. "Not all of them were up to the quality that you would need," says Frye. "But realistically, these are just growing pains," he adds, noting that the program has taken steps to address these issues.

One of these ways is to designate two centers – the University of Kansas Specialized Chemistry Center in Lawrence and the Vanderbilt University Specialized Chemistry Center for Accelerated Probe Development in Nashville, Tennessee - that will focus on the chemical optimization of probes after they have been fished out of the library. Hugh Rosen, director of a Molecular Libraries centre at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, participated in the pilot program and will continue with the next phase. His centre will also increase its focus on post-screening chemistry, he says.

That step is often underappreciated, says Christopher Austin, director of the NIH Chemical Genomics Center in Bethesda, Maryland, a Molecular Libraries grant recipient, and a co-founder of the project. "There's a common notion that discovering a probe is just screening and then you're done," he says. "But there's an awful lot of follow-up work." Austin says that his centre spends an average of two years to develop screening assays and evaluate candidate compounds for each project.

Increased attention to chemistry should address concerns about the low potency of some compounds pulled out during the pilot project, says Frye. As to whether the project is a worthwhile use of NIH funds, Frye considers it is. "For academia to be enabled to really contribute to the national health as opposed to the national discovery of interesting biology, they really need some of these capabilities," he says.

Whether the investment is a success, he notes, will be determined by how many researchers use the probes to fuel their research – something that may not be evident for a few years. "A good probe will generate a lot of publications," says Frye. "It's like an impact factor for a probe."

Sequenom Buys Michigan CLIA Lab for $4 Million

Sequenom plans to buy the Center for Molecular Medicine, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act-certified diagnostics lab, in an agreement worth roughly $4 million.

CMM is a joint venture that was created last March between Spectrum Health, a non-profit health system, and the Van Andel Research Institute, an independent research institute. It includes Spectrum Health’s clinical resources and the Van Andel Research Institute’s genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics know-how. CMM currently provides DNA and RNA extraction, DNA microarrays, multiplex detection, gene expression profiling, and other diagnostic services.

Under the terms of the agreement, Sequenom will acquire CMM for approximately $4 million, of which 90 percent will be paid in common stock. Sequenom said that it also received a tax incentive package valued at up to $20 million over 12 years. The company will also conduct collaborative research projects with Spectrum Health and Van Andel as part of the agreement.

Sequenom said it also plans to open a CLIA-certified lab in its hometown of San Diego, Calif., that will be serviced by the CMM laboratory.

Under the terms of the agreement, Spectrum Health will continue to coordinate third-party payer agreements, will provide the IT interface between CMM and Spectrum Health, and will provide additional state licensor certifications and operations support. The agreement also calls for Sequenom to work with Van Andel in a research collaboration focused on technology development, women’s health, and oncology.

UT Southwestern Med Center Plans BioCenter

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas plans to build a 500,000-square-foot life sciences campus designed to help it commercialize university technologies and draw biotechnology companies to North Texas.

UT Southwestern will develop in four phases its new BioCenter at Southwestern Medical District, on a 13-acre site purchased from the city of Dallas for $4.1 million and located near the medical center’s campus. Each phase will consist of a single three-story, 120,000-square-foot building, with the four buildings to be connected by a sky bridge, and served by two attached parking garages.

The first of the campus’ four buildings is expected to be ready for occupancy in summer 2009. The first floor will offer up to 14,500 square feet of lab and office space for startups, while the second and third floors will feature space built to suit individual tenants. The building will also include a medical device engineering facility.

The campus will accommodate existing life-science companies that want to locate close to the university and its resources, in addition to UT Southwestern startups.

Site plans call for 60 percent laboratory space and 40 percent office space, as well as space for shared administrative services and conferences. UT Southwestern will provide BioCenter tenants with access to several core research facilities, including equipment for DNA and protein sequencing, mass spectroscopy, imaging, and microarray analysis. UT Southwestern’s core facilities are part of the university’s Institute for Innovations in Medical Technologies, which has received $8 million in funding from the Texas Legislature.

Among corporate supporters, Dallas-based AT&T will provide $750,000 over five years toward creation within BioCenter of an entrepreneurial center focused on training researchers in business skills needed toward tech commercialization.

PageSoutherlandPage of Dallas will provide architectural services, while Gilbane Building, which has a Dallas office, will oversee construction of the facility.

BioCenter will rise on 15.5 acres near the medical center’s campus, a site purchased from the city of Dallas for $4.1 million. The BioCenter site was purchased with profits that UT Southwestern received from its technology transfer program. UT Southwestern has generated more than $110 million from more than 300 licenses since 1984 — $40 million of that over the past four years.

OpGen Opens Gaithersburg HQ

OpGen Technologies opened its new 15,000-square-foot headquarters and production lab-manufacturing space on Quince Orchard Road in Gaithersburg, MD.

Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) has offered OpGen a $200,000 state loan conditioned on the company growing from its current workforce of 44 to at least 100 employees over the next 36 months, a spokeswoman for the agency, Karen Glenn Hood, told BioRegion News. The company had not presented a formal response to DBED at deadline, but is expected to approve the deal. In addition, Montgomery County will give the company another $20,000 toward the fit-out of its space in the new HQ.

OpGen, which focuses on genome optical mapping, moved its operations earlier this year from Madison, Wisc., to the Montgomery County Business Innovation Network incubator, from which it graduated in four months. The move coincided with a venture capital award of an undisclosed amount from investor Evan Jones, former CEO of Digene.

Last year, the company raised $23.6 million of first round venture capital from five participants: CHL Medical Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Versant Ventures, Mason Wells and the CIA’s investor arm, In-Q-Tel.

OpGen has hired 15 employees since the incubator graduation, and has said it plans to grow its staff to 100 people over the next two years.

OpGen moved into space formerly occupied by Gene Logic, a biotech company that sold its genomics assets to Ocimum Biosolutions last year and is now known as Ore Pharmaceuticals.

Hoping to draw more companies like OpGen, Montgomery County recently established a BioSciences Task Force consisting of public and private sector biotech leaders who advise the county on strategies and practices for growing the county’s life-sci industry.

Developer Presses for Relocating Planned Arizona Cancer Center from Phoenix to Suburb

Developer Tom Hornaday has publicly asked the University of Arizona to consider putting the planned new Arizona Cancer Center in the Phoenix suburbs of Chandler, Ariz., and Surprise, Ariz., rather than in the city’s downtown.

Hornaday argued that patients need a center in the sort of resort-like setting that is more likely to exist in the suburbs than in downtown Phoenix. But Judy Bernas, an associate vice president at UA, told the Republic that the university has no change of plans in mind: “That which was envisioned on the Phoenix campus is what we will do.”

Hornaday is a longtime board member of the Arizona Cancer Center, and a donor to the center who funded a 110,000-square-foot medical facility at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. The developer also sits on a committee of the Flinn Foundation, and has launched a fund named for his daughter to benefit skin-cancer research at the Translational Genomics Institute.

Genzyme Shells Out $16 Million for 100K Sq. Ft. Framingham Building

Biotechnology company, Genzyme, has purchased a 100,000-square-foot industrial building on New York Avenue in Framingham for nearly $16 million.

The Cambridge, Mass., company plans to use the building to house tools and construction materials while it builds a $250 million manufacturing plant on an adjacent property. Eventually, it could provide room to expand the campus, where 2,000 people, or 20 percent of the company's workforce, are employed.

Genzyme plans to undertake a two-year expansion of its facilities, which will include new office space and a new cell culture manufacturing facility and purification plant. In June, state officials agreed to assist Genzyme by setting aside for the town $12.9 million toward water and sewer system improvements from the $1 billion, 10-year Life Sciences Initiative signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick in June. Genzyme has promised in return to would add 400 to 600 workers to its Framingham workforce of 1,600 as a result of the expansion.

Huntington Development Group Crafts Five-Year Plan, with Life Sciences, Tech in Mind

The Huntington, WV Area Development Council has crafted a five-year plan intended to draw more high-wage, tech-based jobs to the region. HADCO has set a goal of attracting at least 2,000 jobs, with wages high enough to support a family, to the Huntington area over the next five years.

To achieve its goal, HADCO plans to recruit businesses in sectors where the region has a competitive advantage — which includes biotechnology as well as the automotive industry, metalworking, and transportation.

On Sept. 19, Huntington saw some of its economic development retention work pay off, when medical device maker Alcon broke ground on a second plant in Cabell County, within HADCO Business Park, which will manufacture intraocular lenses used in cataract surgery. The new plant will allow Alcon to add 350 new employees to its existing workforce of 700.

HADCO has joined with Marshall University to build a new incubator site for biotech businesses, inside an expanded forensic science center at Marshall, to be finished next year. HADCO also wants to create more seed capital for commercialization of biotech research at Marshall.

Hearing Draws Supporters of Innovation Center Planned for Chapel Hill

Business, technology, and academic leaders in Chapel Hill, NC, urged the Town Council to approve a special use permit for a proposed Innovation Center for businesses that have outgrown incubator space at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Supporters at a Sept. 17 public hearing cited economic development considerations and research opportunities. Shelton Earp, director of UNC's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, said the center could fill a niche created as pharmaceutical giants have moved away from development of their own drugs.

The first building on UNC's Carolina North research campus, the 80,754-square-foot Innovation Center, would sit at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Municipal Drive.

The public hearing will continue on Oct. 27.

Esperion’s President/CEO Nears Deal to Move Firm Back to Michigan’s Plymouth Township

Roger Newton, the founder, president and CEO of Esperion Therapeutics, who re-launched the firm earlier this year after acquiring intellectual property from Pfizer, said he is close to signing a deal to locate his company in Plymouth Township, Mich.

Esperion is likely to move into its old 57,518-square-foot building, one of several buildings Pfizer shut down last year when it announced plans to vacate its research operations in Ann Arbor and displace more than 2,100 workers. Pfizer acquired Esperion for $1.3 billion in 2004.

The Michigan Economic Development Corp., Ann Arbor SPARK, and the Greater Wayne Economic Development Corp. this summer announced they were pooling $3.5 million to acquire the building from Pfizer. The deal would turn the building into the Life Science and Innovation Center, a multi-tenant site for about 10 biotech startup companies, including Esperion.

Santa Fe Adds $1.1Million to Cost of Alachua Center, Now Set to Cost $7.8 Million

The Santa Fe College Board of Trustees has approved transferring $1.1 million from a remodeling fund to the budget of the Alachua Center, a 20,000-square-foot, primarily life sciences building whose first phase is set to open in August 2009.

The transfer has raised the cost of constructing the Alachua Center to $7.8 million. The college initially proposed a 34,000-square-foot building, but has scaled back its plans as construction costs have zoomed over the past two years from the original budget of $6.7 million, set in 2005.

The building is being constructed so that it can be added on to as additional money becomes available for expansion.

Part of the money — $3.4 million — was donated by the City of Alachua and 89 private donors, and qualified Santa Fe for a state matching grant.

Incubator at North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad Research Park Expands Wet Lab

Wake Forest University’s Babcock Demon Incubator in Winston-Salem, NC, will expand its 780-square-foot wet lab with an eye to accommodating multiple startup life sciences companies.

The wet lab is already home to two early stage bioscience startups — Creative Bioreactor Design, a designer of equipment needed to grow tissue and organs in the regenerative medicine market; and Salzburg Therapeutics, the developer of nanomedicine therapeutics for prostate cancer.

As the project matures, the BDI will be able to support six bioscience or nanotechnology startup ventures annually. Building upon the success of the $740,000 Wet Lab LaunchPad, which opened last year and is housed in the Richard H. Dean Biomedical Research Building, BDI intends to supply a pipeline of companies who could become potential LaunchPad candidates for their next stage of development.

Tengion Inc. and Carolina Liquid Chemistries occupy two of the three spaces in the 5,000-square-foot LaunchPad.

BDI operates under the WFU Babcock School of Management’s Angell Center for Entrepreneurship. BDI's goals are to increase the number and quality of growth-oriented early stage ventures in the Triad, support intellectual property commercialization activities at Wake Forest, foster experiential entrepreneurial education, and contribute to the growth of entrepreneurship in the local community.

BDI sits within the in the Piedmont Triad Community Research Center, within the Piedmont Triad Research Park. PTRP comprises six buildings that provide more than 554,000 square feet of wet lab, office, meeting and residential space. Within PTRP are 42 technology tenants that employ a combined more than 850 university and corporate staffers.

RainDance Cites $1 Billion Mass. Life-Sci Initiative in Basing New HQ/Manufacturing Facility in Lexington

RainDance Technologies, a provider of droplet-based microfluidic solutions for genomics research, gene expression analysis, compound screening, and biomarker detection, will dedicate a new 28,000-square-foot headquarters and commercial and manufacturing operations center in Lexington, Mass., on Sept. 26.

The new HQ will more than double the company’s former space in Guilford, Conn., and boost its workforce by 50 percent, to nearly 100 employees within a year. The company will hire new biologists, chemists, mechanical engineers, technicians, software programmers, customer service representatives, and administrative support staffers.

Pharmatek Opens New Highly Potent and Cytotoxic Compound Facility in San Diego

Pharmatek Laboratories, a pharmaceutical chemistry development organization supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has opened an 18,000-square-foot facility in San Diego.

The facility includes new analytical and formulation development laboratories, as well as cGMP manufacturing suites dedicated to the development of highly potent and cytotoxic drug products for early phase clinical trials.

The facility holds a State of California Food and Drug Branch Drug Manufacturers License, which authorizes Pharmatek to manufacture and ship clinical material from its new facility; and is “currently working on a number of highly-potent development projects,” the company said in a press release.

Thailand’s Biotec Eyes Training Center for Students from Overseas

Thailand’s National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, or Biotec, said it will develop a training center for biotechnology, human resources, and agricultural technology development, focusing on attracting students from neighboring countries.

Biotec senior adviser Morakot Tanticharoen said that the agency has set a goal of operating a center of excellence in biotechnology, as well as opening its training and research and development hub for neighboring countries, within the next five years. To that end, Tanticharoen said, Biotec will join with the government, education and private sectors, locally and internationally, to conduct biotech-related R&D, develop human resources and enable technology transfer between sectors and countries. Tanticharoen said the agency’s goals for this year include creating an agrarian cluster, developing a business network, and conducting R&D for businesses.

Tanticharoen said Biotec is collaborating with international and local partners on R&D projects that include development of technology to improve seed production, environment-friendly plastic, and improvement of plant growth and post harvest management of fruits and vegetables, for a longer shelf life. The center will also produce biocontrol agents, intended to significantly reduce the usage of chemicals in pest management.

Noni Biotech International Opens New HQ/Laboratory in Haiku, Hawaii

Noni Biotech International, which does business under the name Noni Maui, has opened a 3,600-square-foot headquarters and biotech laboratory in Haiku, Hawaii, on the island of Maui.

The new lab is designed to help the company analyze and manufacture organic anti-cancer compounds recently discovered in Hawaiian Noni Juice at Louisiana State University’s Medical Research Center. Noni Maui is recognized by the state as an official Qualified High Tech Business.

Philadelphia Biotechnology Firm Transposagen Plans Move to Lexington, Ky.

Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, a privately held biotechnology company, will move its operations and research facilities from Philadelphia to Lexington, Ky.
Transposagen CEO Eric Ostertag cited cooperation with the company by state and local government, the public-private economic development group Commerce Lexington, and the University of Kentucky as key to the company’s decision to relocate.

The company focuses on providing unique animal models of human diseases for drug discovery and development.

Florida’s Indian River State College Opens $5.8 Million Biotechnology Facility in Fort Pierce

Indian River State College has opened the $5.8 million Brenda and Vernon Smith Center for Medical Education, housing biotechnology and bioinformatics laboratories for students in the college's new Associate in Arts degree program in biotechnology. The program is designed to produce skilled technicians for biotechnology companies moving to the area.

The center also houses the region's first medical school, the Florida State University College of Medicine-Fort Pierce Regional Campus.

The $5.8 million facility was dedicated in August and contains the Realtors Association of St. Lucie Biotechnology Suite and the Basil L. King Foundation Informatics and Data Mining Suite.

The biotechnology program is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation to implement the Florida Biotechnology Regional Access Initiative, or Biotrain, which establishes a network of partnerships among the college, high schools, universities, government agencies, and biotechnology firms.

The University of Chicago Medical Center Begins Construction of New Hospital

The University of Chicago Medical Center will break ground next year on its $700 million, 1.2 million-sq.ft. new Hospital Pavilion in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. The building is being designed with the staff's technological needs in mind and planning space that will be easily adaptable to future advancements, says Mike Lynch, principal with RTKL Healthcare Technologies Group, which is doing the technology planning for the new facility.

Expected to open in mid-2012, the 10-story building will focus its services on cancer, gastrointestinal disease, neuroscience, advanced surgery, and high-technology medical imaging. Building designers Rafael Viñoly Architects are creating the adaptable space by implementing a grid system structure to the building. Each 100,000-sf floorplate is constituted of a series of 102 modular cubes, which can be reconfigured based on future space needs without altering the building frame.

The facility will replace existing general operating rooms and adult specialty care beds, and will be the centerpoint of the university’s Medical Center campus. The facility will link with both the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, opened in 2005, and the Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine, an outpatient care facility. The building will be adjacent to the 430,000-sf Gordon Center for Integrative Science, which opened in 2005, and the 330,000-sq. ft., 12-story Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, to open in 2009.

UT Southwestern Med Center Plans 500K Sq. Ft. BioCenter to Boost Research, Draw Bio Companies

UT Southwestern will develop in four phases its new BioCenter at Southwestern Medical District, on a 13-acre site purchased from the city of Dallas for $4.1 million and located near the medical center’s campus on Inwood Road. Each phase will consist of a single three-story, 120,000-square-foot building, with the four buildings to be connected by a sky bridge, and served by two attached parking garages.

The campus will also accommodate existing life-science companies that want to locate close to the university and its resources, in addition to UT Southwestern startups.

PageSoutherlandPage of Dallas will provide architectural services, while Gilbane Building, which has a Dallas office, will oversee construction of the facility.

DuPont Opens Research Center

DuPont opened a corn research center here to help farmers in India increase productivity to meet growing demand for grain. The new center is the fifth research facility in India for DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred and will develop high-yielding hybrids adapted to the unique growing conditions in the area.

The $2.5 million center consolidates and strengthens research activities Pioneer has been conducting in and around Bangalore. The new facility increases research capacity by adding lab space for molecular breeding and expands comprehensive breeding, testing and disease characterization programs in corn.

DuPont also recently opened the biotechnology wing of the DuPont Knowledge Center in Hyderabad, India. The Center is one of five global agricultural biotech research facilities where DuPont conducts biotech discovery work. The other research facilities are in Wilmington, Del.; Johnston, Iowa; Redwood City, Cal. and Beijing, China.

Pioneer has been selling hybrid seed in India for more than 30 years and is one of the nation's leading suppliers of improved seed genetics. Pioneer supports the sale of its products to more than 1.5 million customers in India with an extensive sales and agronomy team that works closely with Indian farmers to get the right product on the right hectare to maximize their productivity and profitability.

Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, is the world's leading source of customized solutions for farmers, livestock producers and grain and oilseed processors. With headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, Pioneer provides access to advanced plant genetics in nearly 70 countries.

Genzyme Opens New Science Center

Genzyme Corp. had the grand opening of its new Science Center in Framingham, MS. The facility serves as a central site for early stage research, where scientists are utilizing the most advanced technologies available to discover novel new treatments for devastating diseases such as Parkinson's, cancer, and heart disease.

The company also announced that the Science Center has received a Gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™. It is one of only 10 laboratories to achieve this high rating.

Researchers at the Science Center focus on a variety of medical areas including genetic diseases, cancer, immune diseases, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, endocrinology and neurological disorders. In their work to develop new treatments, they utilize a range of technologies, such as proteins, antibodies, cell therapy and gene therapy.

Genzyme's core R&D operations are located in Framingham. Genzyme also has an R&D site in Waltham, Mass., for polymer and small molecule research and a facility in Cambridge, U.K., focused on monoclonal antibody research.

Science Center Features

The Science Center incorporates environmentally responsible and employee-friendly design strategies similar to those in the company's landmark headquarters, Genzyme Center. Offices and labs surround the 180,000-square-foot building's six-story central atrium and are connected by open meeting spaces to foster collaboration. At capacity, approximately 350 employees will occupy the Science Center, which has direct views of the outdoors for most employees.

The building's green features include a sophisticated heating and cooling system, high-efficiency fume hoods for researchers, and low-flow water fixtures. The extensive use of glass reduces electricity needs and contributes to a pleasant working environment by allowing a large amount of natural light inside. It is estimated that the Science Center uses 26 percent less energy and 40 percent less water than a comparable conventional building.

The architect for the project was ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge Inc., the engineer was Bard, Rao & Athanas Consulting Engineers Inc. and the contractor was Bovis Lend Lease LMB Inc. The total cost of the building was $125 million.

Dating back to the 1989 merger with Integrated Genetics Inc., Genzyme’s presence in Framingham now represents the company's largest concentration of employees worldwide. With approximately 2,000 employees located in 14 buildings on the campus, Genzyme occupies more than 1 million square feet of space.

About Genzyme's Global Expansion:

The Science Center is one component of an ongoing global expansion of the company's R&D and manufacturing infrastructure. Major projects include the following:

In Framingham, construction is underway on a new, $250 million cell culture manufacturing facility. The 230,000-square-foot site is expected to be completed in 2011 and create approximately 300 new jobs.

A $150 million expansion of the company's flagship cell-culture manufacturing facility at Allston, Mass. began last year. The project, which is focused on adding space for manufacturing support functions, is expected to be completed in 2009 and create approximately 90 new jobs.

Genzyme plans has begun a foundation at a new manufacturing plant in Lyon, France, for the production of Thymoglobulin® (Anti-thymocyte Globulin [Rabbit]), a treatment used in transplantation. The facility is needed to meet the anticipated long-term demand for the product, both for its current use and in potential new indications.

In 2009, Genzyme plans to break ground on a major new R&D center in Beijing. This initiative is an important element in Genzyme's commitment to establishing a long-term presence in China.

Genzyme recently completed a major expansion of its manufacturing facility in Geel, Belgium, to support the global growth of Myozyme^® (alglucosidase alfa), the company's treatment for Pompe disease. Regulatory approval of Myozyme production at the facility is expected during the first half of 2009. Genzyme is also planning to produce Campath^® (alemtuzumab), its treatment for B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, at the facility.

In addition, the company is completing manufacturing capacity expansions at its facilities in Haverhill, United Kingdom and Waterford, Ireland. In keeping with Genzyme's commitment to social responsibility, all of the company's expansions and new facilities worldwide are being built to meet high environmental standards.

Since 1981, the company has grown from a small start-up to a diversified enterprise with more than 11,000 employees in locations spanning the globe and 2007 revenues of $3.8 billion. In 2007, Genzyme was chosen to receive the National Medal of Technology, the highest honor awarded by the President of the United States for technological innovation.

APP Pharmaceuticals Has Bought Additional Facilities in Grand Island, New York

The manufacturing space is being sold as part of an efficiency drive set out by Astellas’ Japanese parent. U.S. generics firm APP, which was purchased by Germany's Fresenius for $3.7 billion (€2.5bn), already has production and packaging operations at the site. Company president Thomas Silberg said that the acquisition “adds needed manufacturing capacity,” and will facilitate the firm’s growth plans.

Under the terms of the transfer, financial details of which are not being released, Astellas will lease the facility from APP through to spring 2009 to maintain supply of Protopic while it completes the transfer of production to its plant in Toyama, central Japan.

The move is in keeping with comments made by APP chairman Patrick Soon-Shiong earlier this year. He outlined the company’s $80m (€56m) investment plan and said that the Grand Island facility and its plant in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, would be the main focus of the firm’s infrastructure spending.

Fresenius Sets Sights on US Generic IV Sector

German health care company Fresenius, which completed its purchase of APP on September 10 through its Kabi subsidiary, has firmly set its sights on the US market and particularly the country’s intravenous generic drugs sector.

BioReliance Expands in Rockville

BioReliance has had to significantly expand its Rockville, US, facility and hire new staff in order to accommodate the growing demand for its genetic toxicology (GeneTox) testing services.

The increased demand for BioReliance’s GeneTox services is partly due to the pharmaceutical industry’s desire to identify those drugs that are likely to fail pre-clinical and clinical trials earlier in the development cycle to help minimise the time and cost of bringing a drug to market.

The company has restructured its toxicology and LADS (laboratory animal diagnostic services) divisions into a new business unit, opened offices in Japan to serve the expanding Asia-Pacific pharmaceutical industry, and introduced new assay technologies.

Their combination of cell-based assays enables pharmaceutical firms to screen much smaller quantities of drug compounds than traditional in vivo studies enabling firms to test the genotoxicity profiles of their candidates much earlier during the development cycle.

In turn, this should help reduce the later stage attrition rates of drug candidates in development and enable pharmaceutical companies to reduce the costs of bringing a drug to market.

Pharmatek Laboratories Opens Highly Potent Facility in CA

Pharmatek Laboratories has opened its highly-potent and cytotoxic facility located in San Diego, US, just over a year after announcing its move into this growth area of contract manufacturing.

The 18,000 sq. ft. facility includes newly constructed analytical and formulation development laboratories and cGMP manufacturing suites dedicated to the development of highly-potent and cytotoxic drug products for early phase clinical trials.

The value of the cytotoxic (anti-cancer) drug market - still the largest category in the high-potency pharmaceutical sector - is around $10bn in the seven largest pharmaceutical markets, and CMOs have been steadily adding capacity to tap into this potential.

High-potency has high barriers to entry and highly-specialized requirements, particularly in terms of containment, contamination prevention and operator safety.

As a result, CMOs in the US and Europe have increasingly been moving into specialised areas such as high-potency because, at least for the moment, there is less competition from fast-developing pharmaceutical markets such as Asia and eastern Europe.

It has been estimated that eventually 65 per cent of cytotoxic manufacturing will be outsourced, compared to only 30 per cent of non-cytotoxic products.

Pharmatek can now offer analytical method development, pre-formulation testing, formulation development, manufacturing for early phase clinical trials, release testing, and stability testing and storage.

Pharmatek’s new facility holds a State of California Food and Drug Branch (FDB) Drug Manufacturers License and is already working on a number of highly-potent development projects. The FDB license authorises Pharmatek to manufacture and ship clinical material.

Quintiles Transnational Corp Has Expanded Its Operations in Singapore

The contract research organization is setting up a new regional headquarters will be double the size of its existing presence in Singapore, according to Quintiles, and will be the home of the region's largest clinical development organization.

Quintiles has been busying itself in the Asia-Pacific of late, an area that is witnessing a period of growth in the demand for clinical trials services as the pharmaceutical industry continues to globalise in search of time and cost efficiencies in drug development and access to new untapped markets in which to sell their drug products.

Its Asia-Pacific investment has led to expansion of seven local offices in the region and the addition of a new location in Indonesia. And earlier this year the company announced the consolidation of its Global Central Laboratories and Clinical Development Services (CDS) units in Beijing into a single, but expanded facility in order to accommodate its growing business in China, as well as improve coordination and efficiency.

They have a staff of 2,800 clinical development professionals, representing a total of 23 nationalities, who have worked in more clinical trials and with more investigator sites than any other single organisation in Asia, according to the company.

Quintiles' Central Laboratory and its Clinical Development Services (CDS) offices will move into approximately 80,000 sq. ft. of space in a building now under construction in Singapore's Science Park One. The move is planned in the third quarter of 2009.

Quintiles has expanded offices recently in Manila, Taipei, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Sydney and Hong Kong, as well as opening an office in Jakarta.

The company has also expanded its presence in the region by partnership. In June, for instance, it signed an agreement with EPS International, a clinical development provider with offices in Japan, China, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan.

University of Texas Developing New Biotech Park

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is developing a new biotech park on a 13-acre site in Dallas with up to 500,000 square feet of laboratory, office, and research space that also will serve as an incubator for startup biotech and medical device firms.

UT Southwestern said that it would provide tenants of the BioCenter with "privileged access" to several of its core research facilities including DNA and protein sequencing, mass spectrometry, imaging, and microarray analysis.

The BioCenter site was purchased for $4.1 million from the city of Dallas. The university said the purchase was funded through profits from its technology transfer program.

In addition, Dallas-based telecommunications firm AT&T is providing $750,000 over five years to the BioCenter to help tenants support training in entrepreneurship as well as job creation, attraction, and retention.

Cord Blood Center Opens

Clean Modules Ltd has completed the purpose-designed Anthony Nolan Trust Cord Blood Centre, which includes a Processing Facility and a Cryogenic Storage facility at the grounds of Nottingham Trent University. The new £1.4 million pounds centre at Nottingham Trent University's Clifton campus is the first combined blood bank and research center in the United Kingdom and it is the first of its kind to be run outside of London. It will provide stem cell donations from umbilical cords and placentas for people with cancer and life-threatening bone marrow conditions. The trust aims to store 50,000 cord blood samples by 2013. Of these, 20,000 would be suitable for transplantation, and 30,000 for research.

The fully validated facility complies with the latest EU G.M.P. (Good Manufacturing Practice) regulation and Good Laboratory Practice (G.L.P.) requirements. It houses a 538 sq. ft. (50m²) Grade D Cryogenic storage area with three Liquid Nitrogen storage vessels with racking systems for the storage of the blood samples, a 269 sq. ft. (25m²) Grade D distribution area with a Class II Laminar Air Flow Cabinet for the testing of the blood samples and a 269 sq. ft. (25m²) Grade C processing area for preparing the storage of the blood samples. Additionally, there is 753 sq. ft. (70m²) of support areas including technical administration, an archive, a meeting room and a utility area.

To meet with the Good Laboratory Practice (G.L.P.) requirements covering blood storage, Clean Modules Ltd installed a complete Facility Monitoring System (F.M.S.) validated to GAMP4 and CFR21 part 11. This sophisticated computer controlled data acquisition and monitoring system continuously checks particle levels, room pressures, temperature and humidity in the cleanrooms.

Additionally, the facility has also been fitted with a Trend Building Management System (B.M.S) to control the Air Handling system, an oxygen monitoring system and a temperature control monitoring system for the Liquid Nitrogen storage vessels and freezers to ensure conditions are optimized for blood preservation. These three monitoring systems have been linked in with the Facility Monitoring System that is covered by an alarm system in case of any variation outside the set parameters.

The Anthony Nolan Trust

The Anthony Nolan Trust is a UK registered charity, founded in 1974, by Shirley Nolan. Her son Anthony suffered from a life threatening congenital disease for which, at that time, the only known cure was a bone marrow transplant. In the absence of a compatible donor for her son, Shirley focused on recruiting adult volunteers prepared to donate their bone marrow. Since then The Anthony Nolan Trust has given the chance of life to around 6,000 patients in need of a transplant and today their register numbers nearly 400,000 people. The Anthony Nolan Research Institute focuses on research to improve the outcome of stem cell transplants and the use of immune system modulation as a form of therapy.

Clean Modules Ltd.

Clean Modules Ltd specializes in the Design, Construction and Project Management of Modular Cleanrooms, Mobile Cleanrooms and In-situ Cleanrooms. Clean Modules Ltd. has considerable expertise in Life Sciences such as Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Hospital, and Biotechnology applications, but also has experience with several other industries. Clean Modules Ltd has previously also completed an Invitro Fertilization (I.V.F) Stem Cell Bank at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital for the NHS and University of Sheffield, and a Stem Cell Bank for the National Institute of Biological Standards and Control (N.I.B.S.C.) in Hertfordshire.

Valeant Pharma Acquires Coria Labs

Valeant Pharmaceuticals has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Coria Laboratories, Ltd., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology products in the U.S., for $95 million. This acquisition expands Valeant’s U.S. business and adds to its dermatology franchise with the acquisition of several products, for which annual sales are approximately $40 million. Coria was owned by DFB Laboratories, which also owns DPT Laboratories, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO).

Laureate Pharma Adding Single-Use Bioreactors

Laureate Pharma, Inc. is increasing its manufacturing capacity with the addition of two Single-Use Bioreactors (S.U.B.), a 250L and a 1000L S.U.B. The S.U.B. is a single-use alternative to stirred tank bioreactors. The S.U.B. consists of a permanent stainless steel outer support container and a Bioprocess Container (BPC), integrated with an existing bioreactor control system. According to the company, this provides a flexible, rapid and economic option to update or increase the bioreactor capacity. The S.U.B. will supplement the company’s current single-use bioreactors, Wave Bioreactors and hollow-fiber systems, as well as the conventional stainless steel stirred-tank bioreactors.

CMO NextPharma to Offer ‘Closed-Vial’ Filling System

CMO NextPharma will offer Aseptic Technologies “revolutionary” ‘closed-vial’ filling system available as part of its offering to clients.

Aseptic claims its ‘closed-vial’ technology offers significant advantages over its competitors, providing a better solution to the challenge posed by the aseptic filling of sterile injectable products.

NextPharma will still offer its own vial filling services from facilities in Braine-l'Alleud, Belgium and San Diego, USA but has also made Aseptic's technology available to its clients.

In doing so NextPharma has expanded its service offering and made the ‘closed-vial’ technology more readily available.

Bill Wedlake, CEO at NextPharma, said: “We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Aseptic Technologies which enables us to enhance further the service we provide for our customers enabling them to access this new technology through NextPharma.”

Aseptic’s filling system is built around its novel vial, which it claims is “the first ready-to-fill vial that behaves as an isolator”.

The vial is sealed and sterilized with gamma irradiation before it arrives for filling. Performing these tasks prior to arrival at the filling line removes the need for the washing, sterilization and stoppering stages normally associated with similar operations. In addition, the vial is made from plastic, eliminating the risk that it will break.

Stoppers on the pre-sterilized vials are pierced with stainless steel needles, allowing for the filling to take place. Once filling has taken place the stopper automatically reseals itself. As an extra layer of security a laser is used on the stopper to ensure it has sealed.

Aseptic claims its system removes several of the complexities associated with isolator technology, a widely used aseptic filling system. Consequently the system is said to be cheaper and take up considerably less space.

Savings are said to be generated as the system needs fewer operators, stoppering is not required and the vials do not needed to be cleaned or sterilized.

The vial filling for NextPharma will occur at Aseptic’s facility near Brussels, Belgium. Aseptic believes that it has created a simpler way of complying with increasingly stringent good manufacturing practices (GMP).

Aseptic said: “The constant improvement of cGMP guidelines, in order to avoid any possible contamination of the aseptic process, does not necessarily imply an escalation in the complexity of the equipment for aseptic production and packaging. This is the realisation that led to the creation of Aseptic Technologies.”

Stallergenes Opens Biggest Pharmaceutical Allergen Production Unit in the World

Stallergenes has officially opened its new manufacturing facility, which it claims is the biggest pharmaceutical allergen production unit in the world.

The facility is located near Paris and has been designed to comply with European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards.

Desensitisation treatments will be produced at the site, primarily for the European and North American markets. In particular the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) contained in Oralair and Staloral will be produced on the site, which has received over €20m in investment.

Lentigen Relocates Operations

Lentigen has relocated its corporate headquarters, research labs and manufacturing capacity from the University of Maryland to a site in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The new 26,000 sq ft facility is located along Maryland's I-270 technology corridor and was chosen by Lentigen as the company believes it can accommodate its future growth needs.

Within the site are two self-contained suites measuring 4,900 sq. ft. that have been set aside for the simultaneous production of both lentiviral vectors (LVs) and proteins in compliance with current good manufacturing practices (cGMP).

New Facility Houses Cytotoxic Robot

B Braun Medical has begun building its £2m manufacturing facility, which upon completion will become the second site in the UK to house a particular kind of cytotoxic drug manipulating robot.

Ground has been broken at the site in Sheffield, which will manufacture drugs with a limited shelf life for distribution to 180 hospitals within a two-hour radius.
The robot will manipulate highly toxic and time sensitive drugs for people undergoing chemotherapy.

There are less than 10 cytotoxic robots in Europe this unit will add significant value to our existing pharmaceutical products and improve their portfolio of the latest in ground-breaking medical technology.

Charles River Laboratories to Buy Molecular Imaging Research Inc.

Charles River Laboratories has agreed to buy US-based drug discovery imaging expert Molecular Imaging Research, Inc. (MIR) for approximately $12.5million (€8.8million) in cash.

The acquisition of privately-held MIR will bolster Charles River’s Discovery Services division with a range of state of the art, non-invasive imaging technologies and expertise that enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers to visualise the effectiveness of their drug candidates.

This latest purchase comes just a month after Charles River announced it had agreed to buy German safety and quality control services firm NewLab BioQuality to bolster its biopharmaceutical services business.

The company has developed a range of methods for determining the effectiveness of anticancer treatments and anti-inflammatory drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and other types of inflammation.

These involve using techniques like positron emission tomography (PET), preclinical micro-computed tomography (CT), anatomical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and bioluminescence and fluorescence biophotonic imaging techniques to study the effects of drugs in both in vivo and in vitro disease models.

Santa Fe Goes Forward with New Construction Plans

Santa Fe College leaders have found ways to move ahead with two large construction projects despite the state’s current economic woes.

College officials said the Alachua Center is scheduled to open to biotechnology students in August 2009.

Danis Building Construction Co. of Jacksonville, was named construction manager.

Trustees approved transferring $1.1 million from a remodeling fund to the Alachua Center budget, raising the total construction expense to $7.8 million for 20,000 square feet of completed building.

The college initially proposed a 34,000-square-foot building, but scaled back plans as construction costs rose over the past two years. The cost of constructing the center, which will primarily be for biotechnology education, was originally budgeted at $6.7 million in 2005.

Clemons said two factors combined to raise the estimated price since then. Diesel fuel — which is used by most construction equipment — has doubled in cost. The other factor was how much site preparation work needed to be done, including how deep crews needed to dig for some of the work.

Clemons said the center is being paid for in part through extensive partnerships. Half of the money — $3.4 million — was donated by the City of Alachua and 89 private donors and qualified Santa Fe for a state matching grant.

College officials said the initial building at the center is being constructed so that it can be added on to as additional money becomes available for expansion.

Concordia Opens New Warwick Facility

Concordia Medical opened their new medical manufacturing facility in Warwick.

Concordia will be leasing a 24,575-square-foot facility for medical manufacturing use. The total capital cost for this expansion is approximately $1.6 million, which includes the build out of expanded cleanroom space and the purchase of new manufacturing and test equipment.

Concordia had recently received a $500,000 loan from RIEDC’s Small Business Loan Fund to assist in its plans to expand its medical manufacturing operations. Additionally, in August 2007 Concordia had closed on a $1.5 million round of venture financing, including $250,000 from the Slater Technology Fund, to support the continuing expansion of the textile maker’s biomedical division (bringing Slater’s total stake in Concordia to $500.000).

Concordia currently employs 57 people in Rhode Island. The company plans to hire an additional 10–15 people within the next 24 months as a result of these expansion efforts.

Concordia Medical has assembled a team that combines specialty fiber engineering skills with extensive medical industry experience, obtained ISO 13485:2003 certification, and achieved FDA QSR compliance for quality systems required for medical device design and manufacturing.

The company recently announced expanded uses of its newest product line, BIOFELT™, a versatile bioresorbable polymer scaffold that can be used in PMA devices for tissue engineering and cell-seeding, as well as 510(k) medical implant applications. BIOFELT facilitates the growth and proliferation of cells and autologous tissues in vitro and in vivo

Heraeus Medical Components Opens St. Paul Campus

Heraeus Medical Components has opened its state-of-the-art, newly constructed facility in St. Paul, MN Meant to consolidate their five Minnesota facilities, the Heraeus Medical Components North American Campus will consist of three phases of construction.

The first phase, already completed, features a 60,000-square-foot high-efficiency structure including a 22,000-square-foot ISO Class 8 environmentally controlled manufacturing area. The company's wire coiling, plastic injection molding and cleanroom assembly services will be performed in this area.

Phase II will add an additional 50,000 square feet of manufacturing area that will house the company's stamped metal housings, precision machining, and wire forming, straightening and grinding services. Phase III will add another 50,000 square feet of space for future growth.

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Opens $100 Million Addition to Walpole, MA, Plant

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has officially opened a $100 million, 115,000-square-foot addition to its Coney Street manufacturing facility in Walpole, Mass. The expansion is designed to increase the facility’s production to more than 1 billion diagnostic tests annually, compared with a production capacity of 600 million tests at the former 400,000-square-foot facility.

The expansion followed a tax increment financing plan worked out between the company, the town and the state. Under the TIF agreement, Siemens is exempted from paying 10 percent of its property taxes each year for 10 years. In return for the tax break, Siemens has promised to donate $40,000 to the town over the next 10 years, and make a good faith effort to hire local employees for the estimated 70 new jobs in the new facility.

VA Completes Acquisition of 65 Acres at Medical City of Orlando’s Lake Nona Campus

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has completed its acquisition of 65 acres for a new medical center within the medical city portion of the 7,000-acre Lake Nona mixed-use master planned campus being developed in Orlando, FL, by Tavistock Group.

The VA will build a 134-bed hospital, a 120-bed nursing home, a 60-bed domiciliary, an outpatient clinic, and a veterans’ benefits mini service center. The $656 million hospital is expected to break ground in the spring of 2009, and be completed in 2012. The hospital is projected to employ up to 2,500 people and serve some 400,000 central Florida veterans.

The new VA Medical Center is strategically located proximate to the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences Campus, Nemours Children’s Hospital and Burnham Institute for Medical Research — the core of a new life sciences cluster, according to developers.

Designed in a joint venture of Ellerbe Becket and RLF, the project incorporates sustainability principles expected to earn the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, Silver certification.

MUSC Seeks Approvals for $55 Million Bioengineering Building

The Medical University of South Carolina has requested approval from the Charleston, SC, Board of Architectural Review to begin construction of a four-story, 100,000-square-foot building that will house the South Carolina Bioengineering Center, a collaboration with Clemson University.

The bioengineering building should cost approximately $55 million and is expected to open its doors by late 2010. About 36 wet lab areas and office space for 36 investigators will be on the top three floors. The first floor will comprise dry labs for computer-based research and conference space that can hold up to 600 people.

The center will have a strong focus on stem cells, and will also focus on biomaterials. Space will also be included for an incubator to house investors who want to start development. In addition, the bioengineering building will house offices of the South Carolina Bioengineering Alliance, a collaboration of MUSC, Clemson, and University of South Carolina that was founded in the mid-1980s.

The proposed facility would be the third in a series of buildings MUSC would construction on or near President Street. The first is a 120,000-square-foot dental building now under construction and slated for completion in August 2009.

The second building is a 114,000-square-foot drug discovery building to consist of laboratory and biotech startup space. It is set for completion by August 2010. The drug discovery and bioengineering buildings will be linked on the first and second floors.

This is the second time MUSC has sought approvals for a new project in the past three months. In July, the Charleston City Council approved a $5 million plan to lease a vacant 36,000-square-foot former mattress factory building at 645 Meeting St. to the South Carolina Research Authority, which would transform the building into an incubator for startup biotechnology and medical equipment businesses launched by medical university researchers.

China-Biotics Begins Equipment Installation at Shanghai’s Qing Pu Industrial Park

China-Biotics said it has begun to install equipment for its new 789,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at Shanghai’s Qing Pu Industrial Park.

Phase 1 of the project will comprise three main buildings and will have a production capacity of 150 metric tons of probiotics per year.

China-Biotics completed construction of the two-level, approximately 130,000-square-foot manufacturing building at the end of August. A second building will have a research and development center, which will further strengthen the company's product development capability. A third building will house a multipurpose office and theater complex, which will be used as an education center to showcase the company's products and educate visitors on the probiotics manufacturing process.

China-Biotics is a publicly traded manufacturer focused on development of probiotics dietary supplements.

Novartis Opens Research Center of Excellence in Virology in Cambridge, MA

Novartis has opened in Cambridge, MA, a new 80,000-square-foot virology research facility designed to develop vaccines for CMV, influenza and HIV.

The new Novartis Research Center of Excellence in Virology, at 45 Sidney St., consists of laboratory and office space for a work force set to grow to 150 employees by the end of 2009.

Novartis’ new viral research center is located in the same city as two other company facilities: the global headquarters of its vaccines and diagnostics division, which moved from Emeryville, Calif., to Cambridge in 2006; and the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical research, which opened in Cambridge in 2002.

Alcon Laboratories Ireland Completes First Phase of Expansion

Alcon Laboratories Ireland Ltd. has opened the €15.6 million ($22.2 million) first phase of an expansion of its Irish operations at the IDA Business & Technology Park in Cork, and announced with officials plans for 186 additional jobs there, at a cost of €21.1 million.

The company is a unit of Alcon, which makes pharmaceuticals, surgical equipment, devices, contact lens care products, and other vision care products. Alcon is incorporated in Húnenburg, Switzerland, but maintains a major operational office in Fort Worth, TX.

Alcon's Cork facility was established in 1991, and acquired by Alcon in 2000 following its acquisition of a US manufacturer of laser systems for corrective eye care, Summit Technology.

Wyeth Plans New Vaccine Facility in New York

The Industrial Development Agency of Rockland County, NY, has approved $283,900 in sales-tax abatements to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, toward construction of a new $16 million vaccine plant at its 550-acre campus in Pearl River, NY, on North Middletown Road.

The exemption relieves Wyeth of the 8.375 percent sales tax on $3.4 million it expects to spend on construction materials for the site. A day before the IDA’s Sept. 11 decision, the town of Orangetown’s Planning Board approved the plant's construction. However, the tax subsidy requires approval from Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef.

The new 36,000-square-foot building, to be built near an existing vaccine-production facility, would help ensure that the Pearl River plant can continue to make its Prevnar vaccine, as well as begin making a new version of the drug, Prevnar 13, in 2010.

Because manufacture of the existing vaccine would likely cease by 2012, he added, some 1,500 jobs at the plant were at risk with out the tax break. The plant employs 3,200 people, making it the largest employer in Rockland, a suburban county bordering northern New Jersey.

The 101-year-old plant also manufactures Centrum vitamins, in excess of 5 billion tablets each year, and researches vaccines against Alzheimer's disease

Synageva Bolts Atlanta for Waltham, MA; Changes Name from AviGenics

Synageva BioPharma, a decade-old biotechnology company focused on new oncology and autoimmune treatments, has relocated from Atlanta to the Boston suburb of Waltham, Mass., and changed its name from AviGenics.

Synageva’s R&D and manufacturing facility will remain in Atlanta.

Sani Patel, the company’s new CEO, told Mass High Tech his company is now focusing on commercializing its products, notably two follow-on biologics in mid-stage clinical trials. In June, the company received $7 million in financing, the final tranche of a $17 million round that closed last year.

Two Biotech Companies among Five First Tenant Startups at Germantown Innovation Center

The Germantown, (MD) Innovation Center, the fifth business incubator to establish itself in Maryland’s life-sci/tech mecca of Montgomery County, is welcoming its first five companies this week, the Business Gazette reported.

The five — two biotechs and three information technology businesses — have signed leases for space at the center, located on the campus of Montgomery College. Four or five more prospective startups will soon be reviewed by the tenant committee.

A grand opening is planned for Oct. 20, 2008 and they expect to be up to 40 to 50 percent occupied in a month or so.

The Germantown center sits within 32,000 square feet on the second floor of the 67,000-square-foot Goldenrod office building. The facility will have 11 wet labs and 45 offices, with the first floor set aside for classrooms and office space for college officials.

The center plans to eventually house 25 to 30 biotechnology and IT businesses. The Germantown campus also has future plans for a 40-acre business park with more than 500,000 square feet of space, and a 127,000-square-foot bioscience education center.

The Germantown center will be the county's second largest incubator — the first is the 60,000-square-foot Maryland Technology Development Center in Rockville, Md. — and the 20th technology-related business incubator in the state, according to the Maryland Technology Development Corp.

BioTrove Renews Lease, Expands Space in Woburn

BioTrove has expanded and extended its lease at 10 and 12 Gill St. in Woburn, MA, a site owned by Cummings Properties, which announced the deal.

The biotech company, which focuses on improving blood typing and researching genetic biomarkers, will add approximately 5,000 square feet, as well as renew its existing lease for more than 33,000 square feet of lab and office space at the Woburn site.

Cummings Properties said it leases more than 2 million square feet of lab space to more than 100 leading life science firms. Gill Street is a sub-cluster for life sciences companies that includes lung disease biopharmaceutical company Aeris Therapeutics, single molecule biology pioneer US Genomics, and detection technologies developer SRU Biosystems.

Cargill Cuts Ribbon for Canola Oil Research Lab in Fort Collins, CO

Cargill has opened within its Fort Collins, CO, campus a new 20,000-square-foot laboratory designed to facilitate the company’s research into the use of canola oil as a biofuel.

The Fort Collins site is the only Cargill location that does genetic work. About 60 people attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and toured the Specialty Canola Innovation Center at the Cargill location, 2540 E. Drake Road. The new facility is designed to help the company adapt canola plants to the dry Colorado climate and includes new laboratory space, and will include an area for plant testing and seed handling.

Among Cargill’s customers is McDonald’s, for which Cargill grows the canola plants that are the source of its canola oil used in cooking its French fries.

Cleanroom Contractor AdvanceTEC Expands Within Richmond

AdvanceTEC, a design/build cleanroom contractor in Richmond, VA, has moved within the city to 11300 Business Center Drive. The company’s new space offers nearly 10,000 square feet of office and conference space for the team of engineers, designers, construction managers, and leadership staff.

Founded in 2000, AdvanceTEC has designed and built nearly 1 million square feet of cleanroom and laboratory space and now maintains contracts in excess of $30 million. Notable clients include the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC; Purdue University; Merck and Co.; Jacobs Engineering Group; and Brookhaven (NY) National Laboratories.

Diagnostic Laboratory Services Relocates Kalihi, Hawaii, Satellite Laboratory

Diagnostic Laboratory Services has relocated its satellite laboratory in Kalihi, Hawaii, into a larger space at 2110 N. King St.

Diagnostic Laboratory Services has 21 satellite facilities on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and 12 on the Neighbor Islands. All offer walk-in medical and drug testing to patients and doctors. DLS also has laboratories in three Hawaii hospitals, as well as on Guam and Saipan.

Builder Seeks First Lease on Life-Sci Campus in Boston Area

The developer of a planned office/research campus in Burlington, MA, is looking to sign its first life-science leases by tapping into growing demand for R&D space in suburban Boston.

The Gutierrez Company is seeking a single tenant to lease at least 80,000 to 100,000 square feet before it breaks ground on the roughly 200,000-square-foot first phase of its Burlington Research Center, located about 16 miles northwest of Boston.

When completed, the biocampus, whose cost is still undetermined, will consist of three buildings totaling 590,000 square feet within a 15.6-acre property that was previously occupied by the defense contractor M/A-COM until corporate parent Tyco Electronics consolidated it with other units 14.5 miles north of Burlington in Lowell.

In July, the town planning board ended about two years of reviews by approving a series of special permits for the project, in addition to earlier rezoning and environmental approvals. One of those permits will allow on the site “laboratories engaged in research [and] development, experimental and testing activities including, but not limited to, the fields of biology, chemistry, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, biomedical devices, nanotechnology, electronics, engineering, geology, medicine and physics.”

The campus can accommodate tenants in both the life sciences and other tech specialties. How soon construction starts, and whether life-sci or other technologies dominate the tenant roster, will depend on market demand. Life-sci space will probably be primarily R&D.

Asking rent at Burlington Research Center will be in the low $40s [per square foot] on a net basis in keeping with the suburban sub-market, plus an allowance of between $125 and $150 per square foot toward tenant improvements.

The first building would likely take 18 months to complete once construction started, and onstruction would be phased, with each building breaking ground as anchor tenants sign leases.

Over the past two years, several life-sci businesses have bolted Cambridge for its suburbs:

Shire plans a $394 million expansion in Lexington, northwest of Cambridge, that would more than double the Massachusetts workforce of its Shire Human Genetic Therapies unit over the next eight years by adding 680 staffers to the 675 individuals it now employs in the state. Shire plans to fill more than a half-million square feet of lab and office space at Lexington Technology Park by renovating a 125,000-square-foot facility, and building two additional structures on development pads, including a 200,000-square-foot and 170,000-square-foot space.

Bristol-Myers Squibb, which is transforming 89 acres in Groton once occupied by the barracks of former US Army base Fort Devens into a $750 million, 400,000-square-foot biologics-manufacturing plant now under construction. BMS projects the new facility, located northwest of Cambridge, will employ 350 people when it is completed in 2010. In return, the company won $60 million in state and local incentives;

EMD Serono, which has announced a $50 million, 125,000-square-foot expansion of its 85,000-square-foot research site in Billerica, northwest of Burlington. The expansion is expected to account for half the 200-person job growth that the US affiliate of Geneva-based Merck Serono expects to yield in Massachusetts through 2012.

Altus Pharmaceuticals, which plans to move and consolidate operations from 125,000 square feet in three Cambridge sites during the third quarter after signing a 10-year lease last year for 168,736 square feet within two buildings in Waltham to the west. The maker of protein therapeutics for patients with chronic gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases would occupy an 83,000-square-foot office building and an 85,000-square-foot lab building in the city. In 2006, Altus came close to a deal for expansion space at Patriot’s Lexington Technology Park; and

ImmunoGen, a developer of anti-cancer drugs, which has already relocated its headquarters from Cambridge to Waltham, where it signed a lease for 88,930 square feet of space at 830 Winter St.

Florida Atlantic University and Cancer Health Solutions Use Grant for Project

Florida Atlantic University and spinout Cancer Health Solutions Resources are using a $184,000 commercialization-assistance grant from the state to conduct proof-of-concept human clinical trials for a drug against pre-cancerous skin lesions, company and university officials said this week.

The gap funding, which has been matched by CHS Resources for a total of $368,000, will also enable the company to continue developing a UV-protective skin lotion based on the same chemicals comprising the drug candidate.

The lotion may more readily be commercialized and provide an early source of revenue that could help CHS continue moving the cancer treatment toward regulatory approval and attract additional outside investment, officials said.

The award was one of several made earlier this year as part of the State University Research Commercialization Assistance Grant program, or SURECAG, which was established last year as part of a broader $35 million bill passed by the Florida government to promote the commercialization of university research and encourage early-stage investment in emerging companies in the state.

The SURECAG grants are intended to help universities secure patents, launch startup companies, develop license agreements, and attract private investments. They also require a dollar-for-dollar match by an outside source — in this case by CHS itself.

3M Buys Switzerland’s Ligacon

3M has completed the acquisition of Swiss filtration specialist Ligacon, considerably expanding its offering to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Dishman Buys Land for New Manufacturing Plant

Dishman will enter Australian market through its existing Australian subsidiary while in Saudi Arabia it will start operations under the JV called Dishman Arabia Limited.

Stiefel’s Plans for Barrier Therapeutics

Dermatology specialist Stiefel Laboratories says that its acquisition of New Jersey based Barrier Therapeutics, which was completed in August, has significantly expanded its product offering.

Stiefel’s worldwide network includes more than 30 subsidiaries around the world, a research and development organisation spanning four continents and six manufacturing operations.

Stiefel’s development and manufacturing operations include R&D facilities in the U.S., UK and Brazil, as well as its production plants in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Ireland and Pakistan.

Forbes Sells Pharmaceutical Assets

Forbes Medi-Tech has sold off its pharmaceutical assets and business unit based in San Diego to Transition Therapeutics. The deal includes a payment of $1m and a potential future sum of $6 million, in cash or shares, based on the achievement of certain developmental and regulatory milestones.

Sandoz Canada Opens Manufacturing Plant in Quebec

Sandoz Canada, a unit of Novartis’ generics arm, has opened a second manufacturing plant at its site in Boucherville, Quebec, boosting local production capacity 66 per cent.

The 50,000 square foot facility, which is part of Sandoz’ C$80m (€53m) upgrade and expansion programme, will manufacture “difficult-to-make products” for both the C$3.8bn a year Canadian generics sector and other key markets around the world.

The new plant will manufacture a range of medicines, including opiate analgesics. They currently make 85 different molecules in Boucherville and the plant supplies products globally, although the bulk of sales are in Canada and the US.

Canadian Generics Market to Double in Next Five Years

In its recent study, Business Monitor International (BMI) reported that the Canadian generics sector was worth C$3.8 billion in 2007, around 13 per cent of the country’s C$29 billion drug market. BMI’s work revealed however that non-branded drugs made up 49 per cent of the total volume sold.

Despite the progress, Canada still lags behind Europe, where regulators have approved biosimilar versions of Johnson & Johnson's Eprex and Amgen's Neupogen.

BioReliance Expands Rockville Testing Services

BioReliance has had to significantly expand its Rockville, US, facility and hire new staff in order to accommodate the growing demand for its genetic toxicology (GeneTox) testing services.

Since then the company has restructured its toxicology and LADS (laboratory animal diagnostic services) divisions into a new business unit, opened offices in Japan to serve the expanding Asia-Pacific pharmaceutical industry, and introduced new assay technologies.

Bilcare Upgrades Facility in Kalish

Bilcare Global Clinical Supplies has enhanced its global Phase III capabilities. The company has upgraded its Kalish large-scale bottling line at its U.S. facility and invested in new Pentapack blistering technology for expanded packaging capabilities in America and Europe.

The Pentapack CT1200L system allows the company to package high-volume runs for large-scale clinical trials and stability tests. This technology provides additional flexibility in trial design and execution to meet individual client needs. The Pentapack system enables the design of blister packaging configurations online using Trialpack Designer II packaging design software, which can be implemented immediately for production. According to the company, the system’s automation significantly reduces manufacturing times and creates a 21 CFR Part 11-compliant electronic paper trail that documents changes from design to production through quality control.

Charles River Buys NewLab of Germany

Charles River Laboratories has completed the acquisition of privately held NewLab BioQuality AG, a Dusseldorf, Germany-based provider of safety and quality control services to biopharmaceutical clients. NewLab joins Charles River Biopharmaceutical Services, which provides services to support the development and manufacture of biologics.

Azopharma’s Cyanta Facility Achieves Successful Audit

Azopharma Product Development Group announced the successful FDA audit of its Cyanta Analytical Laboratories facility in Maryland Heights, MO. The audit occurred from Aug 19-20 and produced no 483s or other major observations.

Cyanta Analytical Laboratories is a member of the Azopharma Product Development Group and provides analytical testing to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The Cyanta facility was previously audited in 2006 which also produced no 483s or major observations.

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