Bio NC Looking Up for the New Year; Companies Expanding and Hiring
By Suvarna Sheth, BioSpace.com
North Carolina is the third leading state for biotechnology with 528 companies. That makes the Bio NCTM Hotbed community one of the most prominent on BioSpace.com.
And, it’s an exciting time for Bio NC, because companies large and small are expanding and hiring. We spoke with executives at three companies in the area, Gentris Corporation, PPD Inc., and Calibrate Inc. to see what’s in store for 2011 and how being a Bio NC Hotbed member has enhanced their business.
The Bio NC Hotbed Map is printed on thousands of promotional pieces and distributed at major life science events and career fairs throughout the annual campaign, while the Bio NC Hotbed Homepage keeps the BioSpace audience informed of the daily activities and events throughout the region.
“Being a part of Bio NC increases our visibility to not only the audience in the North Carolina area but it increases our visibility across the country and in Canada,” says Dr. Scott Clark, Chief Scientific Officer at Gentris Corporation in Morrisville, North Carolina.
Clark, who also oversees sales and marketing for the company, says he believes people use Bio NC and other maps to look at the overall picture for who’s who in the industry.
Clark finds that being on the Hotbed is a great tool for increasing traffic to the corporate website and ultimately to get more interest in the company.
The Bio NC map is one of the top three areas from which the Gentris website generates traffic. Increased traffic and interest often leads to new business, and that’s exactly what’s in store for the company in 2011. “We’re expanding our scientific depth currently to be not only a service company, but to be a scientific partner with our clients,” says Clark.
Gentris provides applied clinical pharmacogenomic services, and helps pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organizations effectively integrate pharmacogenomics into their clinical drug development programs. The company is working to increase its focus on oncology, CNS, and HLA.
The company is also focusing on hepatology/infectious disease and looking at polymorphisms that may affect the safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals used for treatment such as hepatitis C.
According to Clark, this would possibly mean new positions will open up as the new initiatives are gradually brought on in 2011.
“Nothing has been determined about the number of positions at this time, we’re still working on our project timelines and determining our resources that are needed,” Clark explains. Overall, things look promising for the company and expansion is definitely in the air.
Gentris looks for high integrity, highly motivated candidates that are excited to be part of a small company, who are able to learn quickly, and wear several hats at different times.
PPD Inc., headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina is also one of BioNC’s sponsors. The company is expanding and hiring in a major way. PPD announced in December 2010 that it will spend $28 million to expand its lab services division in Henrico County, Virgina.
According to reports, the project will create 190 jobs over the next three years. This news follows a press release that PPD is expanding its research facility in Wayne, Pennsylvania, helping to create and retain more than 150 Jobs.
Sue Ann Pentecost, associate director of corporate communications, says PPD is planning to renovate its existing facility in Wayne. She says the facility offers a variety of services including a vaccines and biologics laboratory, and bioanalytical and global central labs services.
The $25 million project will create at least 86 jobs within three years and retain 80 existing positions. Pentecost says an exact time frame of when the new openings will be posted is not known at this point.
PPD provides drug discovery, development and lifecycle management services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across the world and has more than 11,000 employees worldwide.
“PPD is making significant investments across all of our global laboratory operations to meet the needs of our clients with regard to scientific quality, timeliness and costs,” says Lee Babiss, executive vice president of global laboratory services for PPD. “Our investment in enabling technologies are aimed to offer new and improved approaches for advancing important medicines to patients.”
Babiss says the company believes these investments will drive strong growth across its laboratory service areas including analytical testing, vaccines and biologics, global central labs and our drug discovery business.
“We have developed strong partnerships with our clients and are committed to delivering creative, innovative and high quality to bring greater flexibility and efficiency to meet their requirements,” he adds.
The Bio NCTM Hotbed community is a place for companies large and small. Calibrate, Inc., an on-site pipette calibration and repair company based in Carrboro, North Carolina uses the Hotbed maps as a resource to find potential customers.
“The Hotbed maps are a great resource for finding out who’s who in an area,” says Erin Lenhardt, director of marketing at Calibrate. “It gives our company more exposure and says ‘we’re a dominant player too, so you should get to know us.’”
As for many companies, 2010 was a tough year, but as a result, the company has gotten a better hold of where it’s trying to head. “We will be adding some members to our service department so I’d say that the outlook for the New Year is great,” Lenhardt says.
She says the company is adding new customers all the time, and that means more service personnel will be required. Calibrate Inc. is currently interviewing.
For more information on the Bio NC Hotbed map, contact Raj Kasuganti at 732-746-2306 or rkasuganti@biospace.com.
