Issue 1  Volume 2 May 24, 2004

 

Cleaning Up With Clean Rooms

 

AdvanceTEC is thriving in the business of designing contamination-free work places. Its competitive advantages:  creativity and a willingness to take risk.

 

 

by James A. Bacon

 

Sometimes, Tim Loughran, the managing partner of AdvanceTEC LLC, can come across as a little cocky. When asked how his 17-person engineering/contracting firm can compete so successfully against larger companies for clean rooms and other high-tech projects, his answer is simple: “We’re better engineers.” Then, after a pause, he adds: “We’re also risk takers.”

 

A case in point was a job the company recently won from Merck  & Co. Inc. Merck’s pharmaceutical plant in Elkton, Va., solicited bids for the retrofit of an existing building for a new production line. All three of the other bidders submitted plans that required installing a penthouse on top of   the building. AdvanceTEC sent in    a team of “four guys with laptops” to take measurements, brainstorm ideas and conduct preliminary design work on the spot. They figured out a way to lay out the manufacturing systems within the constraints of the existing building – no penthouse required.

 

“In our business, there’s always a better way,” says Loughran. “We spent extra time up front to figure it out.” The company risked some $70,000 just to develop the proposal, but the plan it submitted saved Merck money on the project and took less time to execute, allowing the drug maker to ramp up production more rapidly. Best of all, AdvanceTEC didn’t have to sacrifice profit margins to get the contract.

 

Specializing in clean room technologies, Loughran and his partner John Burton formed AdvanceTEC in 2000 to serve the semiconductor industry. Sensing the coming collapse of the microelectronics sector soon after their start-up, they diversified into biotech – a wise move. Biotech and pharmaceuticals account or 80 percent of the company’s business today.

Now AdvanceTEC is poised for another spurt of growth – it has a $25 million backlog of work -- as it taps the big money flowing into nanotech. Universities and the federal government are plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into building nanotech research facilities, all of which require environments free from air-borne contaminants.

Pursuing work all around the country, Loughran could locate his business anywhere he wants. Although he gripes about the high cost of air fares, he’s delighted with the Richmond region as a place to grow a company and enjoy a family life. Firstly, there’s a great depth to the labor pool here, he says: It’s easy to find top-notch employees skilled in CAD/CAM design. “I can’t speak more highly of the workforce.” Secondly, he’s just a couple of hours drive from major biotech markets in the Washington, D.C., area and Raleigh, N.C.

And thirdly, Loughran says, his family loves it here, he lives close to work, and he’s only 20 minutes from downtown. What’s not to like? “Our company is built on people who came here because of Motorola and decided they wanted to live here.”

AdvanceTEC is typical of the high-performance, knowledge-intensive service companies that thrive in the Richmond region based on their ability to recruit and maintain top-notch employees, says Rene Robins, vice president-business development for the Greater Richmond Partnership. “Tim Loughran and AdvanceTEC are a case study of what gives Richmond its competitive advantage,” she says. “Really bright, creative people get transferred here and really like it. When it’s time to leave, they want to stay. Rather than move, a good number of them start their own businesses.”                                        More.

VCU rolls out readiness program for first responders.

Virginia Commonwealth University's new Virginia Disaster Readiness Center has begun offering a trio of newly designed bioterrorism courses for people in recognized first responder roles in public safety, public health and medical organizations

Dr. Ruddy Rose,

 Director VCU Poison Center

from across the Commonwealth.

VCU is providing high-tech bioterrorism training to physicians, nurses, paramedics, police, firefighters, and select non-healthcare providers. Program organizers hope to train about three thousand people during the initial two-year roll out of the program, providing training among Central Virginia emergency and health staffers and accommodating personnel from other parts of Virginia as well.

The course work covers decontamination equipment, smallpox education, the strategic stockpile and patient and staff inoculations. The training courses employ lectures, small group training, facilitated group discussions and human patient simulator stations.

"Everyone has an important role to play in dealing with a bioterror event effectively," said Marsh Cuttino, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine in the VCU School of Medicine. "Every incident is different, but what is the same, is the expectation that the response is measured, predictable and efficient. Proper training insures people will execute their role and not step on another first responder or care giver." (VCU News Service, March 18, 2004)                        More. 

A high rate of marriage among deaf individuals can explain the increased frequency of connexin deafness in the United States and may have led to a doubling of its occurrence during the past 200 years, according to a study by hereditary deafness experts at Virginia Commonwealth University . 

The VCU researchers used an innovative computer simulation to show that intermarriage among the deaf can dramatically accelerate the frequency of mutations in the gene encoding the protein connexin 26 that are responsible for most of the inherited hearing loss in the United States. That occurs because parents who both have connexin deafness pass the gene mutation to their child, usually causing deafness at birth and making a disproportionate contribution to the pool of deaf individuals in the next generation, according to the study which will be published in the June issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics. The study was published early online.

"In the United States, at least 85 percent of individuals with profound deafness marry another deaf person," says Dr. Walter Nance, professor of human genetics and lead author on the article. "Because we now know that more than 100 different genes are responsible for deafness, most deaf parents have children with normal hearing because they pass different genes to their offspring. (VCU News Service, April 27, 2004) More.

News

Business

Insmed Leases Manufacturing Facility. Insmed Incorporated has acquired a lease to operate a recombinant protein manufacturing facility in Boulder, Colo., for the commercial manufacture of its Phase III development product, SomatoKine. The drug is used in the treatment of Growth Hormone Insensitivity Syndrome (GHIS), a severe growth disorder. (Press release, April 14, 2004) More. 

ECR Did Great Last Year – Trust us. ECR Pharmaceuticals, a manufacturer of over-the-counter medications, set “another record breaking performance” in 2003, CEO E. Claiborne Robins, Jr., told employees at the company’s 2004 annual meeting. But the privately held company was mum on the details. (Web posting, 2004). More. 

Aderis Drug Advances. Aderis Pharmaceuticals, through its partnership with King Pharma-

ceuticals of Bristol, Tenn., has completed a critical step in its ongoing investigation of the drug MRE0094 to combat foot ulcers associated with diabetes. Aderis' R&D operations are based in Richmond.  (Press release, Jan. 14, 2004) More. 

CBI Vies for Bioterror Vaccines. Commonwealth Biotechnologies, Inc., a life sciences contract research organization, has entered into a teaming agreement with DynPort Vaccine Company LLC, of Frederick, Md., to compete for biodefense vaccine development funding. (Press release, March 30.) More. 

That’s a Lot of Dough. Virginia Commonwealth University has launched its Campaign for VCU with the goal of raising a record $330.5 million to be completed over the next three years. The campaign includes $87 million for the School of Medicine and $70 million for the Massey Cancer Center. (Press release, April 28, 2004). More.

Recognitions

No Sneezing at this Award. Christopher L. Kepley, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology at the Virginia Common-

wealth University, has won the Henning Løwenstein Research Award for research into the possibility of turning off allergic reactions by targeting mast cells and basophils. More. 

VCU Profs Win Top Spots. Two Virginia Commonwealth University faculty have been honored as top contributors in science by the Science Museum of Virginia. Harvey A. Schenkein, assistant dean for research at the VCU School of Dentistry was recognized for his work linking gum diseases to the body’s immune system responses. Lemont B. Kier, professor of medicinal chemistry at the VCU School of Pharmacy, was feted for his pioneering work in drug design. (Press release, April 6, 2004 ) More.

Research

CBI Lands Peptide Patent. Commonwealth Biotechnologies, Inc., has been awarded a patent for a family of peptides for use in the treatment of endotoxic shock, or sepsis, a bacterial infection that kills between 150,000 and 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. CBI designed, synthesized and tested a family of peptides that bind to and sequester the endotoxins. (Press release, Jan. 28, 2004) More


Essenberg Wins Smoking Grant. Thomas Eissenberg, associate professor of psychology and head of the Clinical Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University, has been awarded a $2.2 million, five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop a model for testing the purported benefits of potential reduced-exposure products for cigarette smokers and smokeless tobacco users. (Press release, Feb. 16, 2004) More.

What’s with This? DoD Funds Cancer Research? Insmed Incorporated is among a group of leading oncologists granted $10 million by the Department of Defense to support therapeutic individualization for breast cancer treatment in a translational research project. Insmed's rhIGFBP-3 has been selected as one of the candidate therapies for study. (Press release, May 13, 2004) More. 

Stalking the Deadly Myeloma. Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medical School and Massey Cancer Center have developed a new strategy for treating the incurable blood cancer, multiple myeloma. Exposing multiple myeloma cells to a new drug, UCN-01, in combination with the experimental agent Bay 11-7082, markedly increases incidence of malignant cell death. (Press release, March 31) More. 

Stop Biting Your Nails – Especially if You’re Going Through a Divorce. Researchers at Virginia Common-

wealth University have documented the interrelationship of the personality trait of neuroticism and stressful life events in predicting episodes of major depression. (Press release, March 31) More. 

Girls, Watch out for Alcoholic Step Fathers. Living with an alcoholic stepfather is associated with a significantly higher risk of behavior problems in girls than boys, according to researchers at Virginia Common-

wealth University based pm their work with the Mid-Atlantic Twin Registry. (Press release, April 8) More.