Non-Cluster Locations
|
|
by JOHN W. McCURRY |
| U |
ntil recently, Fall River, Mass., had been close enough to see the development of the biotechnology industry, but hadn't experienced it. While a scant hour's drive from the bio bastion of greater Boston, Fall River somehow missed out on the life sciences explosion of the region over the last two decades. That changed in November 2004, however, as the erstwhile center of U.S. textile manufacturing acquired its first biotechnology firm.
Avant Immunotherapeutics opened a pilot manufacturing facility in Fall River following a global search. The facility will develop and manufacture the company's "next generation" of vaccines for clinical trials and eventual commercial applications. Avant is a developer and manufacturer of vaccines and medicines that employ the human immune system to prevent and treat disease. Avant, which has three products on the market and six in clinical development, focuses on
 |
|
|
Avant Immunotherapeutics
chose Fall River, Mass., for its pilot manufacturing site. Dr.
Una Ryan (left) is CEO of Avant Immunotherapeutics. (Photo of
Dr. Ryan by Jack Foley/Boston)
|
 |
Avant's site search was exhaustive, but in the end the company elected not to stray too far from its home in Needham, a western suburb of Boston.
"We looked across the country and across the world," recalls Una S. Ryan, Ph.D, Avant's president and CEO. "I think being an hour's drive from our R&D operations and headquarters was important, but not sufficient to bring us here. It largely came down to economics and the ease of permit approval."
Ryan says Avant looked at a number of vacant manufacturing sites, but most would have either required extensive retrofitting or were too large. As its search progressed, Avant analyzed and subsequently passed over locating at several former military bases or vacant textile mill buildings.
"All were less desirable than what we found, which was a warm building with walls and nothing inside," Ryan says.
That warm building was in MassDevelopment's South Coast Research & Technology Park at the crossroads of Route 24 and Interstate 195. Avant's ultimate decision to stay in Massachusetts was fueled by new interest from the state, according to Ryan.
"This was the first time Massachusetts had pursued us," Ryan says. "We've always had overtures from other states and nobody could understand why Massachusetts wasn't courting us."
|
Report Cites Emerging U.S. Bio Clusters
Most biotech observers agree on the nine major biotech clusters: Boston, New York/New Jersey/Connecticut, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C./Baltimore, Raleigh/Durham, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Colliers International's Life Sciences Group pinpoints Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, Memphis, St. Louis and the state of Wisconsin to be among the emerging U.S. clusters. Colliers offers the following highlights of each region's efforts: Chicago's burgeoning cluster evolves around a core of academic and medical research institutions. These include the University of Chicago, which can boast of 75 Nobel Prize winners. Houston gets high marks for the Texas Medical Center. The region will also get a boost as The Spectrum at Clear Creek, a business park dedicated to life sciences, develops in coming years. Development in Indianapolis is being spurred by the presence of Eli Lilly's headquarters. Downtown features the Indiana University Emerging Technologies Center and the Indianapolis Science & Technology Park. To the north, the Purdue Research Park is home to more than 90 companies and employs more than 2,500. Memphis' main drivers are St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, according to Colliers. The Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences, a group of business, civic and academic leaders, is working to position St Louis as an international center for biomedical and plant sciences. Madison and Milwaukee are the dominant Wisconsin cities involved in biotech. The University of Wisconsin at Madison has a world-renowned reputation for research and its University Research Park is a big draw to biotech firms. Colliers' annual life sciences review, Alchemy, cites these factors as critical to fostering industry clusters:
|
MassDevelopment assisted Avant in obtaining below-market loans of up to US$2.2 million for the building and new equipment. Ryan notes that acquiring the necessary permits for its manufacturing operation was much easier in Fall River than it would have been in the townships orbiting Boston.
Ryan, who also wears the hat of chair of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, believes the state's invigorated interest in keeping its homegrown bio companies stems from a report the Council presented to incoming Gov. Mitt Romney in 2002. The 2010 Report outlined the industry's potential in the state.
"He (Romney) has in fact been friendly to the industry," Ryan says. "He recognizes we are a growth industry. Gov. Romney, Mayor Edward Lambert and the legislature all reached out to us. We're very happy."
Ryan says the state understood Avant would repay its largesse with job creation.
"We're not a profitable company yet, so tax incentives don't do much for us. We were willing to take loans and repay the state instantly with jobs. Of course, we repay the loans, too. We're providing jobs for Fall River, which has been quite depressed. These are good jobs, not janitor jobs."
The technology park has compatible tenants such as the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth's Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center, Ryan says. The fact that biotech giant Amgen has a major facility in nearby West Greenwich, R.I., is another plus, she says, adding that the Providence-Fall River corridor offers the potential to develop an industry cluster.
"We'd love to have a little cluster develop around us," Ryan says. "We weren't scared to be one of the first."
Avant's Fall River facility will have two manufacturing suites, a purification suite, two quality control labs, supporting clean rooms and future expansion areas. Avant also has a manufacturing operation in St. Louis, and the Midwest was among areas under consideration for the new facility, Ryan says. The company also looked at several Southern states, plus sites in Canada, Singapore and Germany.
"Other states offered some very good incentives and pre-permitted sites," Ryan says. "When a senior official like a governor sends a plane for you to look at potential sites, it's very impressive. MassDevelopment has now learned to do that very successfully. But it's not just money. It's knowing how to make the process easy and make you feel good about your decision."
