Buckeye Biotech

        Jim Kroeger, senior director of the Greater Cleveland Growth Assoc., is convinced that the state has what it takes in biomedical research capabilities at such institutions as Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic, as well as Ohio State -- and enough existing companies -- to power biotech growth. "We've already identified a biotech cluster here, and we believe it will be one of the economic drivers for northeastern Ohio," says Kroeger. The state is backing the effort to create spin-off biotech companies from university research with an $8 million grant.
        Meanwhile, biotech is blooming in Columbus. LeadScope, Paraspinal Diagnostic Corp. and TopoGen have all emerged from the Business Technology Center recently, joining a sizeable number of other companies.
        The Business Technology Center literally gave LeadScope a roof over its head, a phone system and administrative people as well as a chance to get serious business advice. The company does data mining to help life scientists discover new drugs "We'll be self-sufficient soon," says Allen Richon, the CEO, who adds that the company will soon be moving into space adjacent to the Ohio State campus. "We'll be able to use the scientists there as consultants on projects and just to talk to and to get ideas."
        Michigan may seem even farther off the biotech map than Ohio, but Richard Sloan, managing director of Sloan Ventures, in Birmingham, Mich., is working to change both the perception and the reality. His firm has been backing Michigan biotech ventures since 1995. He maintains that Michigan is a major life sciences brain trust consisting of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne University and Van Andel, a new private research institute, all ripe with commercially realizable technology. With that necessity in place, the state's decision to plough its $50 million tobacco judgment into life sciences, including loans to biotech start-ups. "Biotech is a culture where people are discussing the latest breakthroughs at cocktail parties," says Sloan. "Michigan is not a lead player yet, but we will be."
        A small hub of biotechnology companies is developing near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Radio-pharmaceutical research is part of Oak Ridge's mission, as is the active effort to commercialize promising results. "Sometimes individuals will see an opportunity to create a company to move ideas out of the lab," explains Dr. William Madia, director of the Oak Ridge Laboratory. Such entrepreneurial individuals can negotiate a licensing agreement with the government, and even take an M.B.A. course at the Univ. of Tennessee to help them develop their business plan. Currently, 57 students are participating in the M.B.A. programming to hone commercial biotechnology venture skills. About a half dozen biotech companies already are clustered in the Oak Ridge area.
        One of the Oak Ridge spin-offs is Photogen, in nearby Knoxville, Tenn. Eric Wachter, senior scientist, and his two partners worked at Oak Ridge in such fields as radio-pharmaceuticals, which is a method of delivering a drug using an energy source like laser light or x-rays. With their principal cancer therapy product in development, the Photogen people are making a lot of trips into the heart of drug country, in particular greater Philadelphia, which is a center of clinical trials management. Their base of operations, however, is a two-story Knoxville house with an industrial sterilizer Photogen needed already built in by the prior biotech tenants.