|
Risky
Business
Virginia
has a promising base of biotech enterprises and
research institutions that could make it a player
in the life sciences -- if government and business
leaders can learn to live with the risk.
To
rank among the leading technology states of the
21st century, Virginia needs to become "a
cauldron of intellectual activity and
innovation," asserted the Commonwealth's new Secretary
of Technology, Eugene J. Huang, after
addressing last week the
Virginia Biotechnology Summit in Tysons Corner. Echoing
that observation, his fellow speakers urged
researchers, businesses and venture capitalists to
take more risk and devise new ways to collaborate.
The
potential payoff: Rapid economic growth in the
near term; leadership in markets that cut across
manufacturing, services and research; and high
paying, quality jobs for Virginia.
But
embracing risk is not a hallmark of Virginia culture. Business and
government leaders are reluctant to invest in
technology in the face of uncertainty. Even the technology sector,
which drives change in the state, grapples with
economic and cultural barriers that
discourage innovation and deflating biotech
research noted Dr. Jeremy Levin, Global
Head of Strategic Alliances at the world-wide
Novartis Biomedical Institute.
Levin
told summit participants that slippage in public
markets, fewer initial public offerings and bets
on fewer companies by venture funds are putting
the brakes on research at the very time
headlines highlight challenges from flu vaccine
to bioterrorism vulnerability. He pointed out
the need for new types of alliances among
university, venture capital and pharmaceutical
companies to share risk and boost investment. And
he warned against erecting non-scientific
social barriers with the observation, “This is a
truly global enterprise now and if we cannot do
scientific research here, we will do it
elsewhere.”
Dr.
Gerry Rubin, Vice President of the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute (HHMI), whose Janelia Farms
research facility in Loudoun County
will be occupied in summer 2006, made it clear
that its innovative, inter-disciplinary research
teams would concentrate on breaking new ground.
“We want risky research,” Rubin said, “so, if
the National Institutes of Health will approve
your grant application, it will be too tame for
us.”
Progress
and accountability are weighed in different scales
at HHMI. “We support people, not projects,”
Rubin continued. “So we ask our teams to come
back in five years to tell us about their
progress. If they’ve done well we give them more
money to continue their work for another five
years.”
Rubin
admits there is no certainty about the outcomes of
Institute priorities, such as developing new imaging technologies and learning
how neurons process information. But at a minimum,
he expects, HHMI will
create a more favorable environment for biotech
companies in
Northern Virginia, and some of their
investigators could spin companies out of their
work.
The
biggest risk, of course, is that Virginia
will shut itself out of emerging bioscience
opportunities and niche markets by responding too
slowly.
That
would be a shame because bioscience is emerging as
a significant growth industry. The Virginia
Biotechnology Association (VaBIO) counts more than 200 bioscience enterprises
in the state -- 37
percent in Northern Virginia, 25 percent
in
Richmond, 17 percent in Charlottesville
and the balance in Western Virginia
and Hampton Roads. Based on a 2004 survey
conducted with the Virginia Community College
Systems, VaBIO sees a 13 percent increase in
biotechnology workers over the next two years from
a base of about 8,000 today.
A
Batelle expert cited specific Virginia
strengths in agricultural feedstocks and chemicals, some strengths in drugs and pharmaceuticals,
medical devices and equipment and research and
testing. These are the four major subsectors of
biotechnology. And the expert noted that it is
wrong to assume that new bioscience concentrations
will occur where old ones exist when new markets,
such as genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics
are sprouting from very different roots such as
information technology and non-traditional
disciplines.
“We
have assets and we are centered in the emerging
Mid-Atlantic region,” notes Robert T. Skunda,
President and CEO of the Biotechnology
Research
Park
in
Richmond, “but these opportunities require long-term
investments and we are playing catch-up.”
Therein lies the policy dilemma for governments
and businesses with guaranteed short-term paybacks
in mind.
Gov.
Mark R. Warner has noted that Virginia
companies announced over the last decade the
creation of 4,700 new jobs and $1.6 billion in new
capital investment for bioscience research and
manufacturing. But it remains to be seen that
performance will inspire action in
2005 on even the modest initiatives proposed
by the Governor’s Biotechnology Commission. A $10 million bond authorization for
bioscience research facilities, a budget
appropriation for a revolving technology
commercialization loan fund and additional
incentives for venture capital investments all
entail risk. The uncertain returns may fall
outside the box of accountability that public auditors
and cold financial markets prefer to check.
But
would now be a good time to announce a new
vaccination lab in
Northern Virginia? Will new university partnerships with HHMI boost
research and commercialization in Virginia?
Would new collaborations between public and
private sectors and with bioscience leaders in Maryland, the
District of Columbia
and
North Carolina
work to the advantage of Virginia and Virginians?
Certainly these are opportunities, not questions,
and as Technology Secretary Huang quotes a
colleague: “Leaders are those who plant trees
with no guarantee of seeing the fruit
themselves.”
For
the record, VaBIO named MediaTech, Inc. its Virginia
biotechnology company of the year, and Dr. Gordon
Laurie of the University
of
Virginia
its biotechnology educator of the year. They have
a lot in common. MediaTech, which will open a new
facility with 200 jobs in Prince
William
County
in 2006, specializes in cell culture media and
reagents. Dr. Laurie is an associate professor of
cell biology and director of the biotechnology
training program at UVA. Both awardees are expanding the base of
Virginia’s bioscience industry future without knowing
exactly what the outcomes will be. They have
learned to thrive amidst uncertainty. Hopefully,
the rest of Virginia will as well.
--
October 18, 2004
|
