Biotech in Brief

Talk about staying ahead of the competition—nearly three decades after first beating its rivals to China, Promega Corporation is maintaining its competitive edge by opening a new manufacturing plant there. The firm’s Shanghai factory replaces and expands an existing molecular biology reagent production plant; the facility, dubbed Shanghai Promega Life Science Center, will make molecular biology and diagnostic reagents. “China is an integral part of Promega’s manufacturing and business operations,” CEO Bill Linton noted. “This investment in the new Shanghai cGMP manufacturing facility represents Promega’s continued commitment to life science in China”… Life Technologies Corporation is showing a similar commitment closer to home through its joint venture with Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts. The two entities have created and launched Claritas Genomics, a company tasked with developing next-generation, genetic and genomics-based diagnostic testing solutions. Majority-owned by the hospital, Claritas Genomics will incorporate the expertise, assets and personnel of Children’s Genetic Diagnostic Lab while also leveraging Life Technologies’ Ion Proton Sequencer, a benchtop technology that readily can be scaled for mass application of new diagnostic tests…Such assays are possible from Janssen Labs, too. Johnson & Johnson’s year-old innovation center in San Diego, Calif., has accepted 18 early-stage life-science firms into its business accelerator program and is extending the opportunity to solo entrepreneurs as well. According to published reports, Janssen has built a “concept lab” with 10 individual workstations and a 20-person shared office space for capitalists or companies that don’t need a modular or “lockable” laboratory. “In the year since we opened, Janssen Labs has shown to be a place where emerging companies thrive,” noted Diego Miralles, M.D., head of Janssen West Coast Research Center. “We did not foresee the demand to be here, just to be here”…Miralles may have underestimated the demand, but BayBio executives have come to expect it. The life science group’s most recent report found California laboratory discoveries comprise roughly 21 percent of the nation’s biomedical R&D pipeline. The Golden State also leads the nation in venture capital investment, having secured $1.98 billion through the first three quarters of 2012—an amount equivalent to the combined funding total in the next eight top-ranking states…One of those states, however, is struggling to maintain its edge in the life-sciences sector: New Jersey, hammered by a recent exodus of pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs, fell from second to seventh place among U.S. metropolitan life-sciences clusters last year, a Jones Lang LaSalle analysis concludes. The global investment management firm blames the slide on industry consolidation and lucrative deals from areas like San Diego, Calif., and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. “The sluggish economic conditions combined with mergers and acquisitions among the large pharmaceutical companies continue to shuffle players in the state,” the report noted. Being linked to New York doesn’t help, either—LaSalle’s report ranks the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area 14th in life-sciences employment and 20th in life-sciences companies, based on the percentage of overall total employment and number of businesses…Though the Kansas City (Missouri/Kansas) area failed to impress LaSalle researchers, the region nevertheless boasts a growing life-science cluster. The number of life-sciences firms jumped 17 percent since 2009 and sector employment swelled 21 percent to 22,864, according to a recent study from the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute Inc. Biotech research and testing companies employed 6,940 people in the region last year, compared with 5,182 in 2009, while the drugs/pharmaceutical segment retained 5,443 workers in 2012, up from 4,347 in 2009. “In the midst of the recession, we had really remarkable growth in Kansas City in the life-sciences sector,” Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute CEO Wayne Carter told the Kansas City Business Journal. “That’s a really big story.”