NCBiotech News

The head of Cary-based Lucerno Dynamics, a small medical technology company with a stake in nuclear medicine, is urging stronger federal regulation of radiopharmaceutical injections to support patient safety, care and transparency.

Ron Lattanze, chief executive officer of Lucerno, wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to require nuclear medicine centers to report cases of faulty injections as “medical events.”

G2G Consulting provides comprehensive government affairs, public relations, and economic development services to businesses and nonprofits, including the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech). We have enjoyed partnering with the NCBiotech team to educate the U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch on the vital life sciences work taking place in North Carolina and to strengthen the biotechnology ecosystem in the state.

Over the summer, the Biomedical Emerging Technology Applications (BETA) Summer Fellows Industry Program provided six educators with an eight-week opportunity to learn what it is like to work at a biotech company or institution so that they can better prepare their students for this workforce. 

A $13 million grant from Golden LEAF Foundation will fund training equipment at Wilson Community College to support Johnson & Johnson’s new biologics manufacturing facility in Wilson and other life sciences companies in eastern North Carolina.

Atsena Therapeutics, a Durham company developing gene therapies to treat genetic causes of blindness, has received another incentive from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help boost the development of its leading product candidate.

Johnson & Johnson, a global health care and medtech company based in New Jersey, plans to invest more than $2 billion to build a new biologics production facility in Wilson.

Three years ago, Joyce Galarza moved from Puerto Rico to North Carolina with her husband and young child. In this unfamiliar place, she knew only a few people and found herself struggling to find a job. While chatting with another mom at a park she learned about an opportunity to receive training through the BioWork certificate program at Wake Technical Community College as part of a cohort supported by Dorcas Ministries. 

Merz Aesthetics, the largest global dedicated medical aesthetics business, has opened its new Research & Development Innovation Center, North America, in Raleigh. 

The advanced facility brings together U.S. research and development employees, who previously were split between Raleigh and Mesa, Arizona, as well as additional research staff. Executives, researchers, other staff and guests celebrated the launch on Sept. 18 with ribbon-cutting and facility tours. 

Recently, I was asked to reflect on the North Carolina Biotechnology Center as it celebrates its 40th anniversary. It’s been my pleasure and privilege to work with the NCBiotech team for almost 15 years.

A British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company, Reckitt Benckiser, is investing $145.59 million to establish a regional liquid and oral solid dose pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Wilson to produce the over-the-counter medication Mucinex.

The investment announced today by Governor Roy Cooper is expected to bring new life and as many as 289 jobs to a factory at 4700 Sandoz Drive that has been undergoing a shutdown by its most recent owner, Sandoz.

California’s loss looks like North Carolina’s gain.

Astellas Gene Therapies is closing a production site in South San Francisco and transferring all of its projects to a biomanufacturing facility in Sanford, N.C.

The company, a unit of the global biopharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma of Tokyo, will consolidate its gene therapy production at a $100 million plant it opened in Sanford’s Central Carolina Enterprise Park in 2022.

Long-time Triangle ag-biotech executive Toni Bucci, Ph.D., has a clear vision for her new company, Sable Fermentation Inc.: Enable manufacturing and commercialization of agricultural and other biotechnology companies’ innovation, including crop enhancement, food proteins, enzymes and chemicals.

Local, regional, and state officials joined executives from Kyowa Kirin in Sanford on Monday, Sept. 9, to celebrate the groundbreaking for the company’s new biologics manufacturing facility.

Durham-based Humacyte has presented positive long-term results from its bioengineered blood vessels used to treat wartime vascular injuries in Ukraine.

The company said its investigational acellular tissue engineered vessel (ATEV) showed a high rate of patency, or blood flow, and the avoidance of amputation and infection, despite the severe nature of the injuries treated.

The results were presented at the Military Health System Research Symposium, the U.S. Department of Defense’s foremost scientific meeting, in Kissimmee, Fla.

In the 1980s, North Carolina was just starting to land on the radar of life sciences executives across the United States. That’s when I started hearing more talk among my peers about the state breaking into the biotechnology sector in some unique ways.

I wanted to see for myself. My role at Abbott in Chicago allowed me to come to North Carolina to check out the Abbott manufacturing facilities in the state. Then I moved here to take a position as head of international operations with Glaxo (now GSK), where I established an office in Research Triangle Park.