Life Sciences

The Greater Baltimore Committee yesterday issued a report, "Baltimore: Where Science Comes to Life," which recommended making the city "a global life sciences community." Following are excerpts from the report. BALTIMORE boasts a diverse economy dominated by a large number of small- and medium-sized employers. The region has an outstanding strategic location close to the nation's capital and in the middle of the prosperous mid-Atlantic region. The area contains a solid physical infrastructure with strong transportation and communication networks.

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE: The following local students at Gettysburg College have been placed on the fall 2012 Deans' Commendation List, which requires point average in the range of 3.300 to 3.599 for a semester's work: Michael Hoppes of Baldwin, Shannon Kelley of Joppa, Daniel Moorhead of Baldwin, Shelby Creamer of Baldwin, Rachel Dinsmore of Forest Hill, Alexandra Dunn of Joppa, Sarah Kanely of Joppa and Lauren Satterfield of Joppa. BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC: William Melones of Abingdon, Harry Foard of Forest Hill and Samuel O'Hare of Churchville have earned placement on the dean's list for the 2012 fall semester at Berklee College of Music.

The Schmoke administration is inching toward creating a life sciences high school that would give students intensive math and science training to prepare them for careers in biotechnology and medicine.Based on a recommendation by a committee of businessmen and educators set up by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, the mayor has agreed to hire a consultant to consider the feasibility of a life sciences high school.The consultant would weigh a number of issues, including whether it would be better to create a separate high school or to beef up the city school system's math and science curriculum, said William Jews, who headed the committee.

Many people have heard of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or Google co-founder Sergey Brin. But few know about Bert Vogelstein, a Johns Hopkins scientist who helped map the cancer genome and created gene and stool tests to detect colon cancer. A new, international award, similar to the Nobel Prize, but with a bigger payout of $3 million, aims to change that. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg and Brin joined Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner and Anne Wojcicki, founder of genetic testing company 23andMe, to launch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

Talking about building a Baltimore economy based on biomedical businesses was easy.Now comes the hard part -- pulling it off.That task falls to the Greater Baltimore Committee, which announced its shining vision of Baltimore's economic future in May, amid much fanfare. "Baltimore: Where Science Comes to Life" laid down a collective gauntlet to educators, businesspeople and politicians to transform the region's economy from one based on smokestacks to test tubes.It's early yet to gauge accurately how far away that objective might be, GBC Deputy Director Tom J. Chmura said yesterday.

A year after the business community dubbed Baltimore the city where science comes to life, most residents still haven't a clue as to what the life sciences are.But state and city leaders say that by the end of the century every school child, taxi driver, plumber and pinstriped lawyer will come to see life sciences as the city's economic engine, chugging out $150 million in new taxes for Maryland and 60,000 new jobs by the end of the decade.At the heart would be science-based businesses and institutions -- everything from the Maryland Science Center to hospitals such as Johns Hopkins to companies that make genetically engineered plants or food additives from algae.

In another decade or so, life sciences will form the backbone of the region's economy, the Greater Baltimore Committee said yesterday.The Baltimore area will enjoy an international reputation for life sciences businesses, in much the way California's Silicon Valley does for computers, and thousands of city residents will be employed in high-paying, highly skilled jobs within the life sciences field, according to a report unveiled last night by the GBC.The...

One of the most startling facts about the new "vision" for the area's economic future unveiled yesterday by the Greater Baltimore Committee is how much of it is already a reality.The committee -- a venerable voice for Baltimore-area business -- is suggesting that the region set a goal of entering the next century as an international headquarters for the life sciences.The idea is that a coordinated effort by business, labor and government can construct a new engine for economic growth out of medicine and biotechnology.

Great communities hoping to prosper in times of economic change need a strong sense of direction.For years, Pittsburgh was a steel town. It is now transforming itself into a computer software center. Miami was known for tourism and citrus but is becoming an international gateway to Latin America. Singapore, once a low-wage manufacturing site, is emerging as an international center for finance and research and development. Each of these regions made strategic choices and acted to carve new roles for itself in the 21st century.

Some of the first indications that Baltimore was truly poised to become the place "where science comes to life" came not in the laboratories of Johns Hopkins or the high-tech incubator at Bayview but in a crowded hall at St. Elizabeth's Church near Patterson Park one night last fall. It was at the annual meeting of the Southeast Community Organization, known as SECO.There, blacks and whites, senior citizens and students, the families of longshoremen and factory workers that comprise SECO saw the first glimmers of Baltimore's economic future.

As the economy continues to flounder, many cities are looking for ways to replicate Silicon Valley's financial success. When seeking to catch the magic of those biggest successes - Apple, Google and Facebook - the word "innovation" gets thrown around frequently. And as intellectual property is taking on a larger and larger role in how companies do business in the Bay Area, many have equated innovation with patents. A recent Sun article about innovation in Baltimore and Maryland focused on just that.

This month Marylanders learned that Education Week had named our state's schools the best in the nation for the fifth year in a row. Credit goes to our students, educators, parents and policy makers for this exciting recognition. But as CEO of a nonprofit dedicated to science education, I would caution against excess celebration. A closer look at recent test scores reveals that we must improve how we educate our students in science, a discipline that is vital to success in the 21st century economy.

Uncertainty over the economy contributed to a nearly 27 percent drop last year in venture capital funding for young companies in Maryland, Washington and Northern Virginia, the first decrease since 2009, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Last year, venture capitalists invested $725.1 million in 164 deals in the area, down from $987.5 million for 163 deals in 2011. On a percentage basis, the decrease in dollars was more than twice the national average for last year, when funding dropped 10 percent to $26.5 billion invested in nearly 3,700 deals, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported.

A proposal to speed the approval of new prescription drugs has patient advocates and biotech firms — including many based in Maryland — hoping that Congress will deliver a rare dose of bipartisanship this year. Lawmakers are proposing a 6 percent increase in the fees that pharmaceutical firms pay the Food and Drug Administration to offset the cost of approving new drugs. If the measure is not signed into law by the end of September, the FDA would lose the ability to charge any fees and be forced to lay off 2,000 workers, significantly slowing review times.

The Dow takes another tumble, there is one more lackluster report on unemployment, and attention in Maryland turns once again to how to improve the local economy. There have been well-intentioned efforts to stimulate the economy, but there is also an element of wishful thinking in many of these efforts — the thought being that enough bailing twine and chewing gum can hold things together long enough for the economy to improve. However, the situation in Maryland requires a fundamental change in how we do business.

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.

It's the classic fable of the war being lost for the want of a nail.But in this case, what is needed is laboratory and medical technicians to become the workhorses of an industry thatbusiness leaders believe will drive Baltimore's economic growth in the next decade.Medical institutions as large as Johns Hopkins Hospital and biotechnology companies with less than a few hundred employees say they are hunting for talented high school and college graduates who could fuel the life sciences industry.

The Baltimore region's life sciences institutions and businesses are an economic gold mine.That's what the Greater Baltimore Committee keeps saying as it promotes its vision of a local economy centered on the life sciences.That vision calls for dramatic growth among the area's latticework of companies, universities and hospitals.Yet it's clear that private companies need to gather strength before the vision comes to pass. The city's most prominent biotech companies, such as Nova Pharmaceutical Corp.

Wearing a purple-and-white tie and a gray suit, Feike Sijbesma, head of Dutch multinational conglomerate Royal DSM, was whisked from meeting to meeting at the Columbia headquarters of Martek Biosciences Corp. on a recent weekday. He had spoken to the entire company, a couple of hundred Martek employees. He had met with top executives. Somewhere in between, he squeezed in lunch. Several times before, Sijbesma had visited Martek during the 15 or so years the two companies had done business together.

Martek Biosciences Corp. was started in the mid-1980s by a group of defense and aerospace scientists who wanted to study the effects of algae on humans in long-term spaceflight. The Columbia-based company's improbable history has taken several turns since then, as the scientists eventually found market success with an algae-derived nutritional supplement for infant formulas. And on Tuesday, Martek was acquired for $1.1 billion by Dutch company Royal DSM, the world's largest producer of vitamins.