Biomanufacturing is expanding horizons in life sciences.
Darryl Sampey, a veteran of Maryland’s life sciences community, co-founded BioFactura, a biopharmaceutical startup, in 2004. Twenty-plus later, he views the newly expanded business as a “poster child” for a homegrown Maryland biotech company.
Conceived in after-hours brainstorming sessions at an earlier Maryland startup, nourished by generous state supports, fueled by Maryland’s illustrious talent pool and armed with an eight-figure government contract, BioFactura does fit a certain profile. Employing close to 50 people now, the company has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a quixotic, four-member team at a life sciences incubator in Maryland’s Frederick County.
“We were in this tiny little galley, kind of like a submarine,” Sampey recalls. “And you should see the facility we’ve built now.” Covering 18,500 sq. ft., it’s fully equipped, he says, to take a new drug from inception to manufacturing for clinical trials.
BioFactura, which is working with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on an antibody cocktail to target smallpox, is among a wave of biomanufacturers large, medium and small that are writing the next chapter in Maryland’s life sciences story. Theradaptive, another biotech startup founded in Frederick, is producing specialized proteins to regenerate severely damaged bones and tissues. Homegrown BioReliance, now MilliporeSigma, provides critical bioprocessing services and recently expanded to the tune of $286 million in Rockville, Maryland. The list goes on.
“We’ve been nurturing R&D in the biotech space since the early ’90s,” says Jayson Knott, senior director of business development for the Maryland Department of Commerce, “with the dream that someday the actual manufacturing of product would be done here in Maryland. And that dream,” he says, “is coming true right now.”
State Support Pays Off
As Knott suggests, none of this is occurring in a vacuum. Fostered by a unique web of partnerships spanning government, world-class universities and industry, Maryland’s life sciences sector is a $3 billion a year juggernaut, having come to host more than 2,700 businesses that employ more than 50,000 workers. Maryland is part of the “BioHealth Capital Region” stretching from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. It’s considered to be the nation’s No. 3 biopharma cluster, behind only Boston and San Francisco, two locations over which it enjoys distinct advantages, including proximity to a multitude of federal health and science labs. Maryland’s tech-savvy workforce boasts one of the nation’s highest percentages of STEM professionals and its second-highest concentration of doctorate holders in science, engineering and health professions.
“It’s a different environment here,” says Theradaptive founder and CEO Luis Alvarez, a former intelligence officer who served in Iraq. “When I left the military,” he explains, “we set up here in Frederick rather than in Boston for a number of reasons, including the fact that you have much more affordable real estate here. There’s also a lot of talent and the state offers a ton of incentives. It’s just very well suited for a startup.”
Between them, Theradaptive and BioFactura have leveraged millions of dollars through incentive programs that include the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, Maryland Venture Fund, Advantage Maryland and the Biotech Incentive Tax Credit (BIITC), which provides a tax credit equal to 33% of an eligible investment in a Qualified Maryland Biotechnology Company.
Among the windfalls provided by the state’s support of its biotech sector are massive investments by life sciences giants that have swooped in to acquire technologies developed and patented in Maryland. Billion-dollar acquisitions have come to include Amgen’s purchase of Horizon Therapeutics and the sale of Baltimore’s Paragon Biosciences by Catalent Pharma Solutions. AstraZeneca, which purchased Maryland’s MedImmune for $15.6 billion, recently announced a $300 million investment in cell therapy platforms at its facility in Rockville, an expansion that’s to yield 150 new jobs.
Pathways for Growth
Far from standing pat, Maryland continues to take steps necessary to accommodate major investments in its biotech sector. The state boasts millions of square feet of life sciences space currently under development. In January, the University of Maryland Baltimore and Wexford Science & Technology celebrated the opening of 4MLK, the newest addition to the 14-acre University of Maryland Biopark, a cornerstone of Baltimore’s life sciences and technology industries. The new eight-story, 250,000-sq.-ft. lab and office building was supported by a $2 million loan from the Maryland Department of Commerce through the Advantage Maryland program.
Theradaptive designs specialized proteins to regenerate bones and tissues.
Photo courtesy of Theradaptive
More than a million dollars in state funding also helped to establish the new BioHub Maryland Training and Education Center at Montgomery County, a state-of-the-art biopharmaceutical workforce training facility in Rockville.
“We set it up,” says Kelly Schulz, CEO of the Maryland Tech Council, “to be an exact replica of a biomanufacturing site.”
Soon to be equipped with a bioreactor, the 8,200-sq.-ft. training center opened in October 2024 and is providing technical expertise to current life sciences workers, military veterans and high school graduates.
“We are building the biopharma workforce of the future in Rockville,” says Schulz. “Our doors are open to Marylanders of all educational backgrounds.”
This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of the Maryland Marketing Partnership. For more information, please contact Jayson Knott at jayson.knott@maryland.gov, or visit business.maryland.gov/lifesciences.
