A Biotech Cluster Takes Shape

Lynch is helping organize a biotech cluster in Middle Tennessee by playing up the area's and the center's attributes as a biotechnology industry destination at events organized by state economic development officials. "BioMimetics was challenged to spearhead this effort, frankly because we needed the facilities," he says. Helping the region become established as a biotechnology center is like the beginning of automobile manufacturing in Tennessee, he points out. "Those companies picked this location not for what it was then, but for what it was going to become in another 15 or 20 years. Ours is much the same thought process. We think all the key ingredients are in place in the Nashville area and in Tennessee in general for the life sciences industry to just explode."

Dr. Samuel Lynch, chairman and CEO of BioMimetics, is a key promoter of the biotechnology industry in Tennessee. His company is a lead tenant in the Cool Springs Life Sciences Center, in Williamson County.

        BioMimetics will be an anchor tenant at the Cool Springs Life Sciences Center in the Williamson County city of Franklin. The 10-acre (4-ha.), $74 million center, currently under development, will house R&D operations, pharmaceutical concerns, medical device companies and biotech industry support services. The state has brought to the table a $464,000 Tennessee Industrial Infrastructure Program (TIIP) grant to help put the needed infrastructure in place. The first building, a 35,000-sq.-ft. (3,250-sq-m.) structure scheduled for early 2003 occupancy, was fully pre-leased in the spring of 2002. Plans call for 150,000 sq. ft. (13,900 sq. m.) of space at the center when it is fully built out.
        In February 2002, Cell Genesys announced the lease of a 35,000-sq.-ft (3,250-sq.-m.) facility in Memphis in which it will manufacture lung cancer vaccines. "Our new Memphis facility is the remaining component of the manufacturing infrastructure we need to implement our plans for multiple Phase III trials and future potential product launches," noted Joseph J. Vallner, Ph.D., president and chief operating officer, when the announcement was made.
        "The Memphis site will enable the rapid production and shipping of patient-specific vaccines such as GVAX lung cancer vaccine and will complement the centralized production of non-patient-specific, off-the-shelf products such as GVAX prostate and pancreatic cancer vaccines, which will be carried out in our Hayward [Calif.] facility," he continued. "Memphis is an ideal site for this type of manufacturing operation given its well-established infrastructure for overnight air shi pment, as well as an attractive real estate market and a world-renowned biomedical community."
        In April, Greystone Medical Group, a developer of wound-treatment products, announced it would close manufacturing facilities in Florida and South Carolina and consolidate production facilities at a new, 7,800-sq.-ft. (725-sq.-m.) facility in Memphis.
        "The success of our industry depends, in large part, on the support and commitment of government, research facilities and educational institutions, and we have found that support and commitment in Tennessee," noted Gregory Pilant, Greystone's CEO, when the location was announced. Also in Memphis, a new research park is in the works on the site of the former UT-Baptist Medical Center Campus under the auspices of the Memphis Biotech Foundation.