Welcome to our inaugural issue of BT Catalyst, the combination of our weekly Fast News and bi-monthly BT Catalyst magazine.
DEPARTMENTS
North Carolina's value proposition
In Focus Feature: The Future Runs Through Centers of Innovation
From Our Web Site
Biotech Community Called to Support NBAF Bid
North Carolina's bid to land the $450 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) could use a boost from the state's biotechnology community on Sept. 18 when the federal government hosts a public meeting.
North Carolina Takes Biofuels Leadership
The Biofuels Center of North Carolina board of directors meet for the first time. The Biofuels Center has been incorporated and received a $5 million state appropriation.
Salix Pharmaceuticals and Eisai to Market Ulcerative Colitis Treatment
Salix Pharmaceuticals and Eisai will jointly market Colazal.
BDSI/Meda Partnership Worth Millions
BioDelivery Sciences International has sold the rights to its treatment for severe cancer-treatment-related pain to Meda AB of Sweden.
Salix Pharmaceuticals Acquires Gastroesophageal Reflux Treatment
Salix Pharmaceuticals has acquired the rights to metoclopramide-Zydis, a short-term therapy for adults with symptomatic documented gastroesophageal reflux.
In Focus
Future Runs Through Centers of Innovation
By Jim Shamp,
News and Publications Editor
As North Carolina's bioscience community approaches its second quarter-century of global leadership, two things have become obvious:
- We’ve collected many laurels along the way; and
- Those laurels aren’t going to be anybody’s resting place.
Though her economic genes were historically linked to tobacco, trees and textiles, North Carolina has found new ways to express herself in recent decades by cashing in on biotechnology’s wide-ranging innovations.
North Carolina’s business, academic and political leaders have been vindicated for the risks taken and the planning and investment they’ve committed to biotechnology during the last 25 years. The number of bioscience companies in the state has grown past 400, and increasingly these companies are locating outside Research Triangle Park.
This growth already provides more than 48,000 clean, high-tech and high-paying biotech jobs statewide. Biotechnology is now being used in virtually every major industry. As a result, North Carolina trails only California and Massachusetts in total number of biotechnology companies.
But despite these successes, state residents need look no further than recent budget decisions by the General Assembly to see there’s still new growth on North Carolina’s biotech horizon. Specifically, legislators have approved historic funding for a new way to develop biotechnology statewide, fully funding the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's "Centers of Innovation" (COI) program.
Biotechnology in the News
In North Carolina, A Second Industrial Revolution
"The hosiery mill is gone now, along with much of the Carolina textile industry -- a casualty of the global reordering that has concentrated production in Asia and Latin America. But the old brick building is still here and still making products -- albeit modern varieties that could scarcely have been imagined a half-century ago: Today, the site is occupied by a biotechnology company, Biolex Therapeutics."
From The Washington Post
Study Supports Use of BioMarker Group Test
"A study published in the August issue of Pediatric Diabetes supports the use of a blood test produced by a joint venture that includes a Kannapolis-based firm."
From The Triangle Business Journal
Big Deals Boost Two Drug Makers
"Like many other small companies that make this region a hub for drug research, Salix Pharmaceuticals and BioDelivery Sciences turned to larger partners with the money and sales staffs to market new medicines."
From The (Raleigh) News and Observer
Community Watch
- Campell Alliance has opened an Atlanta office, its ninth worldwide.
- Quintiles Transnational Corp. appointed Hugo Stephenson, M.D., as president of its iGuard service.
- Rob Caudle left his public relations post at the Council for Entrepreneurial Developments for Duke University Medical Center.
- Duke University named Dr. Nancy C. Andrews as dean of the medical school, succeeding R. Sanders "Sandy" Williams, who was appointed as the university's senior vice chancellor for academic affairs in February.
- Dr. Michael Flickinger is the new associate director for academic programs of the new Golden Leaf Biomanufacturing, Training and Education Center.
- Dr. Sergio Guerrero, Latin America business associate at INC Research, a Raleigh-based contract research organization, has been elected to the Drug Information Association board of directors.
- Eisai has appointed Dave Gouvela senior director of oral solid dose operations at its manufacturing plant in Research Triangle Park
- BioDelivery hired David Blum, M.D., as vice president of medical affairs and clinical research.
- Entegrion, Research Triangle Park, selected Jennings, the Chapel Hill-based branding and advertising agency, as its new agency of record
- INC Research, a Raleigh contract research organization, will partner with TheraSim, of Durham, to provide a Web-based clinical performance management system to assess and improve the skills and behaviors of clinicians.
Calendar of Events
Sept. 10-11
Opportunity 2007(Wrightsville Beach)
Sept. 12
CATO 2007 Southeast Biotech Symposium (Research Triangle Park)
Sept. 12
Exchange Networking Event (Durham)
Sept. 12
CED MedTech Forum (Research Triangle Park)
Sept. 18
NBAF Public Meeting (Creedmoor)
Sept. 20
BPD Seminar (Research Triangle Park)
Sept. 28-30
2007 Plant Molecular Biology Retreat (Wrightsville Beach)
Sept. 28
NC OPT-ED Alliance Day (Greensboro)
Sept. 28
Biotechnology and the Culture Wars: Bioethics at the Center (Charlotte)
Save the Date
Oct. 12
Sixth Annual Charlotte Biotechnology Conference (Charlotte)
Nov. 5
Nanotechnology in Biology and Medicine (Charlotte)
Nov. 7-8
Southeastern BIO Investor Forum (Pinehurst)
This newsletter was sent Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007. For the latest headlines on North Carolina's biotechnology industry, please visit the news section of our Web site.
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