Baltimore BioPark eyes Montgomery firms

Friday, Oct. 21, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette Selen Muratoglu readies a plasma preparation at the BioPark at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Among the more than 500 business and community leaders at Tuesday’s opening of the BioPark at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, was former American Red Cross scientist David Scott, who knows first-hand how eager BioPark officials are to lure researchers from Montgomery County’s I-270 biotech corridor.

The ceremony, featuring speeches, thank yous and bows by state, city and local dignitaries, marked the dedication of the first of 10 research buildings planned for the $300 million BioPark, also called the UMB Health Sciences Research Park.

But for Scott and his colleagues at the university’s Center of Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases, nothing changed Tuesday. They have been at their benches in BioPark building 1 since July, and are doing the same blood-related basic research they used to do in Rockville, he said.

The move of Scott and 22 other Red Cross researchers to Baltimore was initiated in November 2003, he said, when the organization’s hierarchy decided to disband its Rockville-based studies aimed at keeping the nation’s blood supply free of diseases and immunological disorders. Later that day, Scott called around and almost immediately received a return call from Howard Dickler, who was then associate dean for research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

‘‘He said they were planning to break ground in 2004,” Scott recalled.

As the university completed the deal for the Red Cross team — the largest recruitment in the medical school’s history — the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda was also cooperative, he said. The team took $10 million in NIH research grants with it.

‘‘We are now happy to be here because of its incredible strength at the university in clinical work,” Scott said.

The BioPark is being built on 10 acres that expands the large University of Maryland medical campus west of Martin Luther King Boulevard for the first time.

UMB President David J. Ramsay said the BioPark’s purpose is to commercialize biomedical technologies developed at the university and to expand Maryland’s bioscience industry. When completed during the next decade, the BioPark will create more than 2,500 jobs and generate $300 million in capital investment, he said.

‘‘I welcome this gem to Maryland,” Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) said at the ceremony.

The ‘‘gem” is busy making overtures to the I-270 bioscience cluster.

‘‘We have actually contacted most of the 270 corridor, not with the intention of having them pick up their roots and coming here, but with the intention more of, ‘Would there be a piece of your R&D that would make a good deal of sense to come here?’” Jane M. Shaab, UMB’s senior director of business development said before the ceremony.

The BioPark has its advantages over the I-270 corridor, said Dudley Strickland, a former Red Cross scientist who now heads the BioPark’s vascular disease center.

‘‘If you know the Rockville area, we were very isolated there,” Strickland said. ‘‘This research infrastructure in Baltimore is really a valuable commodity to all of us. That includes the animal facilities, the libraries here, and the core facilities for specialized studies ... that for me makes a world of difference. The second attraction here is the association with the excellent clinical staff.”

Some Montgomery County companies want to work with the BioPark’s first commercial research tenant, the Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, which has invested $20 million to establish its first U.S. clinical pharmacological center at UMB to conduct phase 1 and 2 clinical trials.

Westat Corp, with about 2,000 employees in seven buildings in Rockville, is interested in partnering with Shin Nippon and future BioPark tenants, said Stephen J. Durako, the company’s vice president and study area director.

‘‘We fund work already with UMB, and the University of Maryland’s schools of nursing, medicine and pharmacy, all here in Baltimore,” Durako said. ‘‘We do want to take this opportunity to work together with some clients; it would be synergistic.”

Also, ‘‘discussions are ongoing” between UMB and Rockville bioservices company Biocon Inc., said Rebekah Marine, Biocon’s director of business development.

Before the ceremony, Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley downplayed competition between Baltimore and Montgomery County for biotech companies.

‘‘I think it is all part of the same tremendously strong collection of assets that we boast of in this creative crescent from Baltimore down to Richmond [Va.],” O’Malley said.

‘‘If you look at all the assets we have, including the University of Maryland, NIH and Johns Hopkins, there are very few global economies in this sector that compare as well as we do in the entire region,” he said. ‘‘It makes sense for us to look at Baltimore and Washington together.”

Phillip Singerman, executive director of the Maryland Technology Development Corp., agreed, saying the BioPark will be good for the I-270 biotech corridor — and vice versa.

O’Malley said past difficulties in recruiting and keeping biotech companies in Baltimore are changing.

‘‘You look at what we have going on here at the BioPark,” he said. ‘‘Look at the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar investment by NIH at Hopkins’ Bay View site, and you look at what will soon be coming up out of the ground” where the nonprofit East Baltimore Development Inc. is managing an $800 million redevelopment of 80 acres. He said there is ‘‘no limit” for biotechnology-related jobs that Baltimore can attract because the city has the lowest cost of living and the lowest cost of doing business on the East Coast and is easily accessed by Amtrak from Washington and New York.

Sheila Dixon, president of the Baltimore City Council, said she and James L. Hughes, UMB vice president for research and development, had recently ‘‘traveled the world” to study biotech parks. ‘‘Then we both realized that the city of Baltimore has the best infrastructure for biotech.”

Raul Herrera, director of research for Shin Nippon’s lab, said the company decided to open the lab at the BioPark instead of Montgomery County ‘‘because of the cooperation with the University of Maryland and also the privileged location among pharmaceutical companies that are emerging here.” He said in Baltimore there are ‘‘less restrictions in availability of patient subjects who are already familiar with clinical testing at the university.”

Ramsay agreed.

‘‘We do a lot of clinical trial work already,” Ramsay said. ‘‘UMB is beefing up such capabilities. Phase 1 trials tend to be conducted by commercial contract companies, such as [Shin Nippon]. Phase 2 and 3 are typically conducted by academic health centers because there are populations of patients that academic health centers tend to look after for 10, 20 years.”

Herrera said the Japanese company’s ‘‘state-of-the-art, paper-free data system” for clinical work will save money for its clients.

‘‘Rising costs of phase 1 and 2 trials created a bottleneck of trials last year for an ever-increasing number of new drugs emerging from genome work,” Herrera said.

Hughes said Baltimore and Montgomery County share ‘‘a lot of similarities” in biotechnology.

‘‘The anchor has been NIH in Montgomery County,” Hughes said. ‘‘Here the big drivers are UMB and Hopkins that play that role. The difference is that we have 250 clinical trials right now. Companies in Montgomery County and elsewhere, from pre-clinical to clinical, need to partner with [Shin Nippon] because of its modernization of the clinical trials.”

Because of the expense of phase 1 trials, ‘‘if you can find out more at early stage you can save money in later stages,” Hughes said. More drug interactions can be identified and potentially dangerous side effects from drugs such as Vioxx may be determined early and avoided, he said.

Ramsay said the BioPark will open a second building of about 200,000 feet in the spring of 2007. A Maryland Forensic Medical Center is scheduled to open in the BioPark in 2009. Then, additional buildings are scheduled to open every 18 to 24 months.

Hughes also predicted that in 10 years — after the Intercounty Connector is built and opens — Baltimore and the I-270 biotech corridor will be thought of as a single, large BioPark.