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Biomedical staff making progress |
Biomedical staff making progress
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
By Jeff Sturgeon
For a peek at some of the greatest assets of the Carilion Biomedical Institute, consider the invitation list for today's groundbreaking ceremony for the institute's new headquarters in Roanoke. The invitation was e-mailed to a drug company chief executive officer, a university president, corporate executives on both coasts, doctors, lawyers, engineers, venture capitalists, politicians and a host of players in Western Virginia biotechnology and economic development circles. Daniel Barchi, the institute leader, said this was no shotgun e-mailing. He said he or other institute employees know these people - all 488 of them. The work the institute began five years ago - that of trying to build a biomedical business community in the Roanoke and New River valleys - is moving forward thanks to widespread connections he and his staff have made in government, industry and elsewhere, Barchi said. In the past year, Barchi said, the institute has used those connections and other expertise to produce tangible economic benefits for the region. These developments come after a slow start. Today, in the latest initiative, the institute, Carilion Health System and the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority will launch the construction of two commercial office buildings, the first structures in a new biomedical business park. The location is a 27-acre site in Roanoke's Reserve Avenue area that's been cleared for redevelopment at city taxpayer expense. It's about a mile south of downtown near Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and Victory Stadium. One building will permanently house the nine-person institute, which rents an office downtown, and have lots of room for leasing to businesses. The first business will be identified today, Barchi said. The other building will house an expanding laboratory services business of Carilion Health System. The long-term vision is to create a hub of business activity named the Riverside Centre for Research and Technology, which, when finished, is to fill 110 acres. In late 1999, Carilion, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia opened the institute to fund research at the universities and bring the most promising inventions to market. More recently, the institute has also contacted medically oriented technology companies based elsewhere and tried to lure them to the Roanoke-Blacksburg region with venture capital, assistance in real estate, management and manufacturing, and access to doctors, medical facilities and patients. The biomedical institute and Riverside Centre are two of the chief strategies for growth in the Roanoke Valley. Carilion's money - $23.2 million so far - pays institute expenses. Carilion has said it will pay for the office buildings, too. In the early years, the institute invested heavily in basic research, which helped the university partners but yielded few tangible results for the community. The only jobs created other than those at the institute were in Charlottesville, where the only company formed was based. The institute is now claiming credit for creating jobs and investment in the Roanoke region, Barchi said last week in his first report on the institute's economic impact. Companies receiving institute assistance have created 24 jobs in the Roanoke and New River valleys with an average salary of $37,800. Thirteen are salaried jobs, some of which pay in the high five figures; 11 are hourly. That does not include the jobs within the institute. To arrive at an estimate for the overall economic impact, Barchi combined the revenue, payroll and facility costs of all CBI-assisted companies; the money paid to area companies performing CBI-driven research and development work; and royalties and license fees paid to CBI or other local companies as a result of CBI-supported product innovation. As of March 31, or halfway through the institute's fiscal year, Barchi calculated the total economic impact at $2.9 million. By comparison, it will take $2.1 million to run the institute for the current year, he said. "The question becomes, how do you measure success?" Barchi said. For a nonprofit organization such as the institute, success occurs when the organization generates more dollars of economic activity than its operation costs, Barchi said in answer to his question. The institute meets that test, he said. The institute persuaded Genomatix Corp., formerly an Ohio biotechnology company, and Surgical Tools Inc., formerly a Connecticut medical instrument vendor, to relocate to Roanoke last year. Barchi counts the companies' revenue and payrolls as new economic activity. A Richmond-area company, Sleepmate Technologies, gave about $800,000 of sensor manufacturing work to a Roanoke County company, Plastics One Inc., which hired nine people to fulfill the contract. Sleepmate owner Steve Burton's separate medical device company, PhysioAdvantage LLC of Midlothian, is testing medical devices at Carilion Health System. Also, the institute invested an undisclosed sum of its own funds in ZPRO Pharmaceutical Inc., a Roanoke-based branch of a California company. ZPRO Pharmaceutical is developing an over-the-counter pill to be called Compound Q, which reportedly removes fat during digestion. It's nicknamed a "fat sponge." Meanwhile, the institute is devising a means to redistribute surplus medical devices and supplies that might otherwise be thrown away. It helped a coalition of companies that includes Prime Research of Blacksburg win a $1 million grant to advance emergency battlefield medicine. Another angle the institute works concerns inventions. Right now, it is using Virginia Tech and several physical therapists to evaluate an innovative exercise chair developed in North Carolina. Two institute-formed companies are in the early stages of product development. One of them is developing a biosensor. The other is envisioned as a test for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder that combines standard techniques of observation with a brain scan. The institute helped fund development of the technology at UVa, and then licensed the technology with which to try to create a company. Therapists in the Roanoke Valley are testing the process, while institute staffers fashion a business plan. In total, the institute has evaluated 100 business opportunities, 80 inventions and 60 technology disclosures by university researchers. There's more happening in the institute's small Church Avenue office than the institute has told the community about. Many initiatives are treated as confidential because they involve inventions, marketing strategies and other closely guarded business information, staff members said. When the institute's headquarters building goes up, visibility will increase, but the 5 1/2 -year-old institute staff doesn't want the public to take that to mean that the institute is just beginning work. "The building is a symbol," medical director Andy Muelenaer said. |