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Biotech incubator nurtures offspring

Submitted by: John Warner on Sep 14, 2003 at 5:00 am Tagged with: General Archives Source:

Biotech incubator nurtures offspring
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 - 6:14 pm

By Rudolph Bell
BUSINESS WRITER
dbell@greenvillenews.com

GREENWOOD — After two years and nearly $5 million, the South Carolina
Biotechnology Incubation Facility is finally germinating the seeds of a biotech
startup company.
And more may be on the way.
Greenwood and state officials created the business "incubator" to nurture
biotech startup companies they hope will spin out of research at the Greenwood
Genetic Center. Scientists at the nonprofit genetic center have made
breakthroughs in the discovery of the genes that cause some forms of mental
retardation.
The six-laboratory incubator has been mostly empty since it debuted two years
ago, right next to the genetic center. But now it houses a collaborative
venture between the genetic center and Biotronics Corp., a Massachusetts
biotech company, that could evolve into a new enterprise over time.
The venture — fueled with $873,000 from the National Health Resources and
Services Administration — aims to develop a new way of detecting Fragile X
Syndrome, the most common inherited condition that causes mental retardation.
The venture can't make a marketable product for at least seven years, but
Chang-Ning Wang, founder and chief executive of Biotronics, thinks it's a
potential "blockbuster."
The Fragile X test could potentially be used to screen four million babies born
in the United States each year and might also find a ready market overseas, he
said. It could be used to test newborns, or to detect abnormalities in fetuses,
giving the mothers the option of abortion, Wang said.
"The potential there is tremendous," said Wang, a molecular biologist and
former professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He founded the
seven-employee Biotronics a decade ago.
Roger Stevenson, director of the genetic center, said the plans call for the
Fragile X screen to be used for newborns in the Carolinas for two years,
followed by a five-year national demonstration project that hopefully will
involve one million newborns.
After that, "It's conceivable that the technology could be picked up by private
companies," Stevenson said.
"I think it's the beginning point of what we've envisioned," said Peter Arnoti,
economic development director for Greenwood County. Five years ago, Arnoti
initiated Greenwood's push to develop the biotech industry as a way to
diversify its traditional manufacturing base.
The Fragile X test could be just the start of new products and services to flow
out of research at the genetic center. Stevenson said he expects that within a
decade the center will have discovered not only new diagnostic tools, but
actual treatments for genetic disorders.
"We will not be in drug development, but if a treatment is discovered — a
pharmaceutical or a special dietary thing — someone has to develop that and get
it into the market so it will be available to people," he said.
Karl Kelly, chief executive of the South Carolina Biotechnology Incubation
Program, said he's talking to three other biotech startups about establishing a
partnership with the genetic center and moving into the incubator.
"We have no commitments from them to date," he cautioned. "We just think of
these, perhaps one will make the commitment to relocate."
The Greenwood incubator is the first of a series of incubators that Kelly
envisions across South Carolina. Others would be at the state's three research
universities: Clemson, the University of South Carolina and the Medical
University of South Carolina.
Kelly said it makes sense to establish the second incubator at the medical
university because of the volume of research being conducted there and its
market potential. He's working with MUSC and the city and county of Charleston
to do that.
Kelly has also surveyed research at South Carolina universities to ascertain
its market potential and is helping existing biotech startups not housed in an
incubator. Those include Argolyn Bioscience and Molecular Therapeutics in
Charleston, PEG-Genisys in Columbia and a Clemson venture that Kelly said he's
not at liberty to name.