Issue 1  Volume 4 December 7, 2004

 

Men in the Black

 

After five years of red ink, Commonwealth Biotechnologies is generating a profit. The VCU professors who founded the R&D outsourcing company now see a blue-sky future.

 

 

by James A. Bacon

 

A new federal law has created a juicy market for laboratory companies that do DNA profiling: $1 billion in contracts over five years to clear up the backlog of DNA crime scene samples and convicted offenders.

 

Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc. (CBI), based in Chesterfield County, is one of only eight labs in the country accredited by the National Institute of Justice to do the work. Soon, CBI will be one of only seven accredited labs – because it’s buying the assets of one of the others, Fairfax Identity Labs (FIL), in Northern Virginia. 

 

The acquisition was a neat trick for the three VCU scientists-turned-

businessmen--Richard Freer, Robert Harris and Thomas Reynolds--who nurtured and nudged CBI to profitability and $5.5 million in annualized sales over 12 long,

sometimes painful years. In one gulp, CBI will swallow about $1.8 million in new revenues. Even better, CBI can accommodate virtually all of FIL’s business in its own labs, allowing it to achieve “considerable” cost savings by shutting down the Fairfax facility. Freer expects the acquisition to have a positive impact on the bottom line beginning early 2005.

 

Best of all, CBI now is positioned to compete for business from the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that enables federal, state and local crime labs to swap DNA profiles electronically. Two key scientists and three marketing specialists from FIL have agreed to join CBI and help pursue the federal business. Says Freer: “We’re pretty pumped about it.”

 

CBI, which provides a wide range of high-end laboratory services, represents one of the first home-grown biotech success stories in the Greater Richmond region since community leaders targeted the life sciences as a priority for economic development. Virginia Commonwealth University generates roughly $200 million a year in research, most of it in the life sciences, and the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park has attracted a cluster of government, not-for-profit and private-sector clients. What Greater Richmond has still to demonstrate is the capacity to launch successful start-up enterprises.

 

Commonwealth Biotechnologies is one company that has made it. The R&D firm stands as proof that Greater Richmond has the resources to incubate and grow high value-added life science start-ups, says Gene Winter, senior vice president of the Greater Richmond Partnership, the region’s economic development group. The CBI story also demonstrates, he adds, that “a company can compete for federal government business by parlaying Richmond’s lower cost of doing business and proximity to federal customers in metro Washington.”                                       More. 

Where Engineering

Meets Medicine

Medical research at an engineering school? You bet! Professors at the VCU School of Engineering are engaged in cutting-edge research that could improve the health and quality of life of millions.

Mention the word "engineer," and most people think of guys in white shirts and geeky glasses building skyscrapers, configuring factory equipment or, occasionally, doing something exotic like designing NASA spacecraft.

In the popular imagination, engineers work with "things" like machines and computers, not with "people." But the stereotype is startlingly out of date: Some of the most exciting applications of the engineering discipline today are in the life sciences.

"Nowhere is the contribution of engineering to medicine more evident than at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Engineering, which shares VCU's broader commitment to inter-disciplinary study of the life sciences. Working at the crossroads between different departmental disciplines, VCU professors are pursuing exciting research that could improve the lives of millions.

Take, for example, the work of Gary L. Bowlin, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In a process similar to that used for spinning cotton candy, he uses electro-spinning technology to 

             Gary Bowlin

VCU investigates an experimental blood substitute for severely injured people

The Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center launched a study Monday on an experimental blood substitute, PolyHeme, that will be given to critically injured and bleeding victims before they arrive at the hospital.

The VCU Medical Center is one of 23 Level-1 trauma centers in the country that is studying the oxygen-carrying blood substitute and its ability to increase survival in critically injured and bleeding patients. The study will compare the survival rates of patients receiving PolyHeme with those of patients who receive saline solution, the current standard of care. (University News Services, October 25, 2004.) More. 

A Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center neurosurgeon was the lead developer of a new piece of equipment that is now being used by physicians in 20 hospitals around the world to perform delicate surgical procedures deep inside the brain.

The new equipment, which is about the size and weight of a plastic coffee cup, replaces a bulky, halo-like stereotactic metal frame that had to be bolted to a patient’s head and then to the operating table. The so-called “frameless” device is being used in deep brain stimulation procedures, highly precise surgical techniques that involve placing tiny electrodes into remote areas of the brain to treat Parkinson’s Disease, tremors and dystonia, which is characterized by involuntary twisting body movements or postures. (University News Services, November 9, 2004) More. 

Brain cells become increasingly unable to regulate calcium loads as they age, becoming more vulnerable to injury and premature death, according to new findings that Virginia Commonwealth University researchers will present at an international conference this month.

The findings could help scientists better understand premature aging and how it is linked to aging-related disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to research that VCU neurologists and pharmacologists [presented] at Neuroscience 2004, the Society of Neuroscience’s 34th Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif.

... Robert DeLorenzo, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, a professor in neurology at VCU, and his research team will present the key findings from a preliminary study suggesting that as neurons age the ability to regulate the normal physiological calcium loads becomes greatly diminished. (University News Service, October 20, 2004) More. 

News

Business

Living Micro-

systems Secures $8.6 million. Living Microsystems has received $8.6 million in Series A venture funding. The company’s first product, currently in the clinical optimization phase, would reduce the need for amniocentesis, a painful and invasive test for Down Syndrome, with a simple blood test of the mother in early pregnancy. The company, which licenses technology developed in Massachusetts, maintains its head-

quarters in the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park. (November 12, 2004) More. 

Insmed Raises $8.2 million. Insmed Incorporated, developer of drugs to treat endocrine and hormone disorders, will net $8.2 million, after expenses, from the sale of common stock and warrants. The proceeds will be used to fund additional clinical trials and other corporate purposes. (November 8, 2004 ) More.

ECR Launches Allergy Drug. ECR Pharma-

ceuticals, founded by the former CEO of A.H. Robins, has released LODRANE 24, an allergy product using an extended-release technology that allows it to work all day long. ECR will market LODRANE in partnership with Elite Pharmaceut-

icals, a New Jersey developer and manufacturer of the product. (November 19, 2004.) More.

kSERO Lands Federal Grant. The Virginia Biosciences Development Center has received a $149,115 grant from the U.S. Department of Education for client company kSERO Corporation, Inc. kSERO will use the funds to develop of a cognitive after-school program focused on enhancing the learning capacity of children. (September 29, 2004) More. 

Castle Technologies Moves to Biotech Park. Technologies, a developer of IT and Web-based solutions for health care organiza-

tions, has established an office at the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park. (November 12, 2004). More.

People

Parrish to Create Homeland Security Degree. William Parrish, a former official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will create one of the nation's first under-

graduate majors in homeland security and emergency planning at the VCU School of Government and Public Affairs. (November 11, 2004) More.

Research

VCU Profs Patent Tissue Regeneration Technique. VCU engineers and scientists have patented a technique to grow three-dimensional tissues and organs in a mold made from fibrin, a material the human body naturally uses to repair wounds, advancing the possibility of allowing patients to grow new organs from their own cells. Said co-inventor Gary Bowlin: “Using fibrin directly from the human body to create a three-dimensional matrix for tissue regeneration was the key to our research. (November 17, 2004) More.

Gold Nano-Bullet May Kill Tumors. VCU physicists have created a gold-bearing “nano-bullet” that targets tumors and may help scientists develop non-invasive cancer treatments. Scientists found that when gold particles are reduced to a few nano-meters, they become highly reactive and readily bind to silica clusters, allowing the cluster to absorb infrared light and create enough heat to potentially kill cancer tumors. (October 20, 2004) More.

Cracking the Deadly Cryptosporidium hominus. VCU researchers have sequenced the genome of the cryptosporidium hominus, a single-celled, parasitic protozoan that authorities believe could be used as a bio-terror agent. In 1993, Milwaukee experienced  the largest recorded outbreak of the waterborne disease when more than 400,000 people became ill and more than 100 died. Researchers hope to develop vaccines and therapeutic drugs to limit its effectiveness. (October 27, 2004) More.

Aderis Drug Improves Parkinsons Symptoms. Aderis Pharmaceuticals, a Massachusetts biotech firm that maintains its R&D facilities in Richmond, has announced that a Phase III study of its Neupro transdermal treatment for advanced Parkinsons disease showed “significant and clinically relevant” improvement in symptoms with negligible side effects. (October 12, 2004) More.

Massey Cancer Center Wins $600,000 Grant. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Cancer Center received a prestigious award and a $600,000 grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research. The collaboration between investigators at the Massey Cancer Center and the Baylor College of Medicine will examine tumor-to-tumor differences in gene expression and how these genetic differences affect response to different chemotherapy drugs. (October 22, 2004) More.

SomatoKine Designated Orphan Drug Status. Insmed Incorporated has received official European orphan drug designation for the use of its drug SomatoKine in the treatment of extreme insulin resistance. There is currently no approved treatment available for patients with extreme insulin resistance in either Europe or the United States. Insmed plans to initiate a Phase II clinical trial in patients with Type A insulin resistance later this year. (November 8, 2004 ). More.