NCBiotech News

BTEC, along with the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, recently received the Economic Development Partnership Award at North Carolina State University’s Office of Outreach and Engagement annual awards ceremony. The ceremony, which was held April 29 at the university’s Dorothy and Roy Park Alumni Center, honors the commitment of NC State faculty and staff to fulfilling NC State’s land-grant mission alongside community partners.

Morrisville-based Metabolon, a provider of metabolomics data and insights for the life sciences, has closed on a new $60 million credit facility to fund company growth and expand research and development efforts.

An initial $42.5 million was funded at closing and will be used to support the company's global expansion plans, including market penetration initiatives and strategic partnerships, the company said in a news release.

In the spirit of building a better mousetrap, medical device startup SonoVascular is developing a new technology to more effectively treat patients who have potentially life-threatening blood clots.

It’s spring, 2024. A season of hope for everyone from gardeners to college applicants. And it’s also harvest time for North Carolina’s life sciences ecosystem.

It’s time to kick off a year of celebration for the state’s prescient and steadfast 40-year investment in life sciences growth and development via the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech).

Asheville, North Carolina-based FedUp Foods this week announced it is expanding its operations with a state-of-the-art beverage manufacturing facility in Wilmington. The company is the largest private-label fermented beverage manufacturer in North America. 

Planning is complete for Triad BioNight, a much-anticipated celebration of bioscience growth and recognition of industry leaders in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad region.

The event, expected to draw over 400 attendees, will be held Thursday, June 27, from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro. Individual registrations are $100 at the event web page.

Duke University spinout Tune Therapeutics is rehearsing the overture of its avant-garde therapeutic platform targeting chronic Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) that could also upend many more chronic disease treatments.

Tune, which is jointly based in Durham and Seattle, is one of a small group of gene therapy companies developing a new technology known as epigenetic editing.

An initiative connecting military talent with job opportunities in North Carolina’s growing biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry will expand, thanks to a new federal grant.

The two-year, $825,000 grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, will be used to increase access to job training, internships and referrals across the state through the Military Outreach and Veterans Engagement (MOVE) initiative, launched in 2019 by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. 

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has helped hundreds of companies achieve amazing milestones over four decades. It’s only fitting that the state’s thriving life sciences sector stop and recognize NCBiotech’s own milestone on the 40th anniversary of its founding.

The 5th BioAgTech World Congress, produced with the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative at North Carolina State University, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, kicks off today and runs through Thursday at the Raleigh Convention Center in downtown Raleigh.

About 1,300 people are expected to attend the global conference, which will explore topics of biopesticides, biostimulants, biofertilizers and other bioag tools important for farmers across the globe. 

Sam Archer earned a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina Agriculture and Technical State University in Greensboro. Today, he works in quality assurance for Merck, a global biopharmaceutical company with a biomanufacturing site in Durham.

Grifols, a global manufacturer of plasma-based medicines headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, held a celebration to mark 50 years in Clayton, NC.

Grifols acquired the Johnston County facility in 2011 from Talecris Biotherapeutics, turning Grifols into a top-three plasma-sector powerhouse. 

High school students across the country can now easily and affordably perform cutting-edge gene editing thanks to the new CRISPR in a Box educational kit. Burlington-based Carolina Biological Supply Company has entered into an exclusive partnership with the ChristianaCare Gene Editing Institute to manufacture and distribute the educational tool.

CRISPR in a Box allows students to use CRISPR like a pair of “molecular scissors” that cuts DNA at specific locations and delete sections or replace them with other sequences.

Raleigh sustainable food startup Atlantic Fish Co has developed and tested a cultivated black sea bass prototype, the company’s latest milestone in the production of sustainable seafood made from harvested fish cells.

In an announcement this week with the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab (NCFIL) in Kannapolis, Atlantic Fish said development of the sea bass represents a breakthrough in cellular agriculture. The company produces seafood by harvesting fish cells, feeding them nutrients and giving them a structure to grow on.

FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), plans to invest $1.2 billion to double the size of its manufacturing facility currently under construction in Holly Springs.

When completed, the site will be the largest end-to-end cell culture CDMO facility in North America, housing state-of-the-art biopharmaceutical manufacturing equipment and technology, including two large manufacturing suites for large-scale monoclonal antibody drug substance and drug product manufacturing.