June 17, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace Breaking News Staff
BOSTON – Germany-based Sirion Biotech GmbH plans to join the ever-expanding biotech party in the greater Boston area by establishing its own presence in the area, the company announced at BIO International today.
In addition to coming to America, the company plans on hiring 25 employees in research and development and business development over the next year, the company told BioSpace this morning. SIRION Biotech provides materials for biotech companies to use to improve gene therapies and vaccines.
Sirion told the Business Journal it was drawn to the Boston area specifically for “viral vectors,” a gene therapy science that enables the replacement of disease-causing genes with healthy genes. Gene therapy uses genes to treat or prevent disease. In the future, this technique may allow doctors to treat a disorder by inserting a gene into a patient’s cells instead of using drugs or surgery. There are several experimental techniques for gene therapy including replacing a mutated gene that causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene, deactivating an improperly functioning gene or introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease.
Sirion, which launched in 2007, said it first came to the Boston area in May in order to establish relationships with U.S. companies. The company currently has about 20 employees, and following its move to the U.S., will more than double its staffing.
“With its constant growth in the preclinical sector and a successful track record worldwide, the time has come to spearhead a move towards the US science community, enabling easy access to this advanced technology platform,” Sirion said on its website.
On its website Sirion said its specialists in Boston are available to talk with other companies about custom adenovirus service for individual adenovirus construction, custom lentivirus vector service an in vivo applications for adeno-associated viruses (AAV).
Last year Sirion announced a new line of cell specific AAV construction plasmids, controlling expression in brain and retinal sensory cells, liver, cardiac and skeletal muscle.
Sirion is looking for revenues of about $1.7 million this year and is seeking between $5.6 million and $11 million in funding, the Business Journal reported. The vaccines and gene therapy markets, which Sirion specializes in, are expected to be a combined $57 billion market by 2019.
The greater Boston area, including Cambridge, has been the booming biotech hub on the east coast, with more and more companies announcing a complete move to the area, or opening of satellite offices to collaborate with other pharmaceutical companies or research universities and institutes. One of the reasons for the greater Boston area becoming such a major hub in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries is the plethora of research universities in the area. Boston also has one of the highest educated workforces in the nation. Not only are smaller companies calling the Boston area home, but many larger and established pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer Inc. , GlaxoSmithKline , Takeda Pharmaceuticals , Sanofi , Biogen Idec, Inc. and Novartis AG have presences in the city. The close proximity of so many pharmaceutical and university laboratories provides researchers and scientists easy access to clinical studies and building partnerships between companies.
“It is much easier to have collaborative relationships when you can visit each other’s labs and have face to face meetings easily,” Ann Taylor, Novartis Global Head of the Program Office, told BioSpace last summer.
According to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, which makes its home in Cambridge, Mass., the heart of the state’s biotech industry, the biotech and pharmaceutical presence in the state grew by 41 percent between 2004 and 2013. Across the state the industry employed 57,642 in 2013, the most recent year with complete data.
Recent growth in the Boston area includes IBM Corporation ’s new health unit, which will employ 2,000, as well as GlaxoSmithKline’s new innovation center in Boston.
There are a number of sites in the area being marketed to smaller biotech firms, including 340,000 square foot facility that formerly hosted Vertex Pharmaceuticals . The area, which includes three buildings, will be rebranded as Sidney Research Campus by BioMed Realty Trust, which owns the buildings. Vertex vacated the space in 2013 when it moved a few miles into Boston.
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