Biotech Companies

In an article appearing in the June 12 Business section about Maryland companies named to the "Biotech 50" list, the 1995 net sales figure for Life Technologies of Rockville was incorrectly reported. The company posted $272.3 million in net sales.The Sun regrets the error.Three Maryland-based biotechnology companies, Human Genome Sciences, Life Technologies and MedImmune, have been named to a prestigious list of the top biotechnology companies in the country.The so-called "Biotech 50" list is compiled annually by Coopers & Lybrand LLP, the national business consulting firm, and is based on market capitalization rather than profitability.

In a conference room in downtown Baltimore, F. Blix Winston compared the Food and Drug Administration to a "slow-moving bulldog. " "You don't want to get bitten," Winston, an expert on the federal regulation of medical devices, told a crowd of about 50 entrepreneurs and academics recently. "You don't want to tangle with the FDA," he warned. "The FDA has the power to come in and padlock a company's doors. " Winston's presentation was part of a new approach by Maryland economic development officials to promote the state's life sciences industry.

Two leading Maryland biotechnology companies announced yesterday that they would collaborate on human gene therapies and licensing agreements in an arrangement analysts said could speed the way to product development.The pact unites a company that discovers genes, Human Genome Sciences Inc. of Rockville, and a company in the business of developing gene products to treat diseases such as cancer, Genetic Therapy Inc. of Gaithersburg.Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will try together to identify and develop products using Human Genome's gene discovery research and Genetic Therapy's therapy technology.

A leader of an effort to build a metropolitan Baltimore manufacturing facility that small biotechnology start-up companies would use to develop new products said backers hope to win state support for the project during the next session of the General Assembly.Jared Cohon, vice provost for research at the Johns Hopkins University, told a seminar on biotechnology at Hopkins Bayview Research Campus yesterday that Maryland is among the leaders in the number of biotechnology companies but ranks lower in sales by biotech companies in the state.

Genetic Therapy Inc., a biotechnology research company in Gaithersburg, is ready to sell 1.5 million shares of common stock at $15 a share, the company said yesterday.The proceeds from selling the stock, which was priced yesterday, will be used to finance research and development of systems to deliver treatments for cancer, cystic fibrosis and pulmonary diseases. The company, working closely with the National Institutes of Health, has developed a delivery system for inserting genes into cells as a means of treating illnesses.

Maryland's budding biotechnology industry took a modest step forward yesterday when British Bio-technology Group plc, of Oxford, England, announced the opening of its U.S. clinical research and regulatory affairs subsidiary near Annapolis."

A Columbia biotechnology company has won a grant from the U.S. and Israeli governments to help develop fertility drugs for fish and other scientific innovations to build the nascent fish farming industry.AquaPharm Technologies Corp., along with two Israeli partners and Massachusetts-based AquaFuture Inc., will receive $3 million in government aid for the four-year project, which is part of a U.S.-Israeli scientific cooperation initiative announced by President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin last year.

When Gail Folena-Wasserman joined Gaithersburg biotechnology startup MedImmune in 1991, she was its first employee in research and development, and dreamed of what the company might be "when it grew up. " Two decades later, the senior vice president for biopharmaceutical development is helping to test new drugs at a dramatically different MedImmune. Five years since a $15 billion acquisition by British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, the company is funneling a pipeline of potential therapies that has grown three times over and covers a wider spectrum of diseases.

Baltimore's biotechnology sector has undergone tremendous growth over the past decade, but it won't evolve into a major economic engine unless some key challenges are addressed, industry experts said yesterday. Overcoming those hurdles will be critical to the success of multimillion-dollar biotechnology parks planned for Baltimore's east and west sides, about 350 people attending a Greater Baltimore Committee "business outlook" conference were told. Walter H. Plosila of Batelle, the institute that operates a research center in Harford County, said Maryland is one of the top states in the country when it comes to the biosciences, largely because of the concentrations of companies in Howard and Montgomery counties.

Maryland start-up biotechnology companies began lining up Friday morning for a chance to apply for the state's generous, but limited, tax credit for luring investors to the industry - five days before the program can officially accept applications. As of 4:30 p.m., representatives from 11 companies had written their names on a whiteboard in a conference room at the University of Maryland's BioPark in Baltimore. The state will officially accept applications July 1 for the Biotechnology Investment Incentive Tax Credit - which allows for a 50 percent tax break, up to $250,000, per investor in a company.