Biotech poised for success

BIG CHALLENGES IN PLAY: ProThera Biologics entered into a partnership with ProMetic Life Sciences in 2015 to develop treatments for "orphan diseases," that is those affecting fewer than 200,000 people, based on what ProMetic said is "unique intellectual property." Pictured is Founder and CEO Yow-Pin Lim. / PBN FILE PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
BIG CHALLENGES IN PLAY: ProThera Biologics entered into a partnership with ProMetic Life Sciences in 2015 to develop treatments for "orphan diseases," that is those affecting fewer than 200,000 people, based on what ProMetic said is "unique intellectual property." Pictured is Founder and CEO Yow-Pin Lim. / PBN FILE PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

Editor’s note: In celebration of Providence Business News’ 30th anniversary, staff writers and contributors examined the stories and trends that defined the region’s business scene for the period.
Could Providence be the next Cambridge, a city known as a biotechnology hub? Given recent economic-development activity, it would seem that this corner of the technology sector is on the verge of a takeoff.

Since CV Properties LLC and Wexford Science & Technology proposed plans last year to build a multimillion dollar life sciences complex on 5 acres of vacant highway land in the I-195 Redevelopment District, those familiar with the industry say the project has the potential to put Providence on the map for biotech and revitalize the former Jewelry District.

“I think it’s going to be catalytic for us,” Katherine Gordon, managing director of the Technology Ventures Office at Brown University, said recently. “Wexford wouldn’t come if they didn’t see an opportunity.”

The complex will feature 1.1 million square feet of space to be built in three phases with the first expected to cost $250 million.

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The promise of jobs and what the Wexford project could bring to Rhode Island has industry leaders excited.

“Rhode Island’s biotech industry, whether in the research sector, or startup sector or in the realm of established companies, is relatively underdeveloped compared with other more mature biotech markets,” said Richard G. Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Technology Fund.

Biotech in Rhode Island, Horan explained, touches on three areas: research underway at institutions such as Brown, Lifespan and the University of Rhode Island; established companies such as Amgen Inc., based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which has a West Greenwich facility, and Alexion Manufacturing LLC in Smithfield, a division of New Haven, Conn.-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc., and startup or emerging companies.

Even though CytoTherapeutics, the first biotech company to arrive nearly three decades ago is no longer, Horan said numerous companies were able to capitalize on what the Providence firm developed in the late 1980s, through either the technology it created or its former employees.

An example is CytoSolv Inc., a Providence life sciences company, which was acquired by Semma Therapeutics of Cambridge, Mass., last year. CytoSolv, which will remain in Providence, will help Semma work on diabetes treatment.

Horan noted that the Alexion facility originally was built for a different company, Alpha-Beta Technologies, a firm that went bankrupt. Dow Chemical then took it over and Alexion bought the facility from Dow in 2006.

“It’s still there and up and running. There are 300 employees there all earning high-value, high-wage jobs,” Horan said.

Horan said he thinks the “real opportunity” for the state “is in the sector of startup companies and emerging growth companies.”

Those companies have the potential to be the next Amgen or Alexion, he said. And that’s how Rhode Island could make its mark in the biotech industry, he said.

The last five years, Horan said, have brought “significant success,” naming as examples Slater-funded companies such as Neurotech Pharmaceuticals, a Cumberland firm developing sight-saving therapeutics for the treatment of chronic retinal diseases; IlluminOss Medical Inc., of East Providence, which is in the middle of clinical trials for its minimally invasive orthopedic fracture repair; and ProThera Biologics, of Providence, which last year announced a partnership with ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. to develop and commercialize human plasma-derived inter-alpha inhibitor proteins to treat rare diseases.

Nabsys, which closed in early September only to reopen in March as Nabsys 2.0 LLC in its same location in Providence, has returned to its original mission, to develop its high-definition electronic DNA mapping platform. Its former CEO and founder, Dr. Barrett Bready, also is back at its helm.

Raising capital that will allow companies to reach the next stage of their business platform can be difficult. Slater only provides seed and early-stage funding. Rhode Island’s greatest advantage, Horan said, is its location – it’s between biotech hotspots in Massachusetts and New Haven, Conn.

A skills study conducted in 2013 of the industry commissioned by Tech Collective, the state’s bioscience and information technology association, said that bioscience is growing “faster than the Rhode Island economy” and employs roughly 4,600.

“In a decade (2002-2012) in which private-sector employment in Rhode Island sagged by 4 percent, the biosciences grew employment by 24 percent,” the study stated.

Tech Collective Executive Director Tom Falcone said the number of bioscience and related patents increased 36 percent in the 2009-2013 period over the previous five-year period.

Gregory E. Paquette, professor and director of biotechnology and medical laboratory science programs at URI, said that in addition to the Wexford life sciences project, another nearby project will help “set the stage for things to happen” in the Knowledge District.

The $220 million South Street Landing project, slated for completion in 2018, will house a nursing education center for Rhode Island College and URI as well as offices for Brown.

“I think we can really be in the game with biosciences. … It will be exciting over the next five to 10 years,” Paquette said. •

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