UMBI regroups

University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute forges ahead following controversies, audits

Friday, Feb. 24, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo RAchael Golden⁄The GAzette Philip N. Bryan, a professor with the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and founder of Potomac Affinity Proteins, says he appreciates the freedom UMBI affords its staff to venture into the private sector.

Now 20 years old, the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute this year is both celebrating the milestone and regrouping from several recent challenges.

Even as UMBI continues to pursue its stated mission — to ‘‘conduct research, make discoveries, generate solutions and develop new technologies for commercial application” — it has had to weather turnover; some hurt feelings resulting in a former professor’s lawsuit going to trial in April; two audits of UMBI and its technology transfer practices; and a reassessment by the state university system of whether it should still exist at all.

Aris Melissaratos, secretary of the state Department of Business and Economic Development, emphasized that he has used UMBI’s presence and activities to market Maryland to biotech companies considering a move to the state, according to a university system report.

UMBI reported significant progress in 2005, in some cases exceeding the number of patents and licenses that other University of Maryland campuses reported one year earlier. It also is on track to complete a much-awaited 140,000-square-foot expansion this year of its Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology in Rockville.

In addition, UMBI has implemented a new database to keep better track of its assets and is looking to hire a director of new ventures with a range of responsibilities, including building new programs and ensuring a constant flow of revenue, said UMBI president Jennie C. Hunter-Cevera.

‘‘The state has good reason to be happy, if not ecstatic, with UMBI,” said W. Jonathan Lederer, director of UMBI’s Medical Biotechnology Center in Baltimore.

Still, challenges remain. For example, Claude Nash, the vice president of research and development credited with helping to improve the environment in the last couple of years, plans to leave his post in a few months.

‘Leaner and meaner’

Hunter-Cevera has taken credit for making UMBI ‘‘leaner and meaner” — a process that resulted in some layoffs a few years ago.

One of those affected was David M. Hone, an associate professor at UMBI’s Institute for Human Virology in Baltimore, who was denied tenure and sued UMBI in 2003 for $10 million. The case is scheduled to go to trial in April in circuit court in Baltimore, according to his attorney, Stephen R. Robertson.

An internal audit released in 2004 dismissed allegations against Hunter-Cevera that she showed favoritism by hiring a friend, J. Kay Noel, as a consultant who was paid nearly $600,000 over four years, and that certain individuals were fired for filing complaints. Hunter-Cevera has said that the layoffs were related to a tight budget, but those who were laid off complained that that wouldn’t explain why Noel was paid so much.

And in a second audit, George E. Dieter Jr., a former University of Maryland engineering dean, critiqued UMBI’s tech transfer practices. He recommended a ‘‘more flexible approach,” more staff, a better-defined policy for dealing with intellectual property and a new Council of Technology Transfer Office for working with other university system campuses.

In an interview last year, Hunter-Cevera said the audits were productive. ‘‘There’s always room for improvement,” she said, emphasizing that she was ‘‘very receptive to positive criticism.”

In his report, Dieter credited Nash with improving the environment for tech transfer after he was hired and took over Noel’s duties. But Nash didn’t intend his tenure to be long-term, and he plans to leave UMBI midyear to move closer to his family in the Philadelphia area. Nash said he is actively helping to find a replacement and would stay as long as necessary to ensure a smooth transition.

Nash’s departure will be another in a line of significant transitions at UMBI. Founding president Rita R. Colwell left in 1998 to head the National Science Foundation, and UMBI was left without a permanent president for two years before Hunter-Cevera took over. It then took another three years to hire Nash.

Nash calls his tenure at UMBI ‘‘a very interesting and exciting experience” and cited only the pull of family as a reason for leaving after less than three years.

UMBI survives

Unlike universities in other states that have designated only offices to deal with tech transfer, the University of Maryland established UMBI as a more autonomous institute that focuses solely on these activities, without providing classes or conferring degrees.

The setup gives professors more freedom to develop technologies and spin off businesses — adding to Maryland’s economy.

Last year, however, the university system’s Board of Regents scrutinized the arrangement, to see if UMBI should continue as a separate institute that doesn’t generate tuition. The group, which included Hunter-Cevera, concluded that UMBI had sufficient indirect cost recovery from research grants and revenues from other sources to continue operations.

While state funding for UMBI has dropped in recent years — from $15.5 million in fiscal 2000 to $15 million in fiscal 2005 — revenues from private sources have increased, from $19 million to $40.5 million over the same period, helping fuel its growth.

UMBI’s visibility helps crystallize the public’s understanding of the need for research, said Julie Coons, CEO of the Tech Council of Maryland.

‘‘We think that it’s a tremendous asset,” Coons said.