Well in advance of tonight's celebration of biotech's growth in the Piedmont Triad, Becky Dougherty walked into the Marriott Convention Center.

Becky and her colleage from Prudential Carolinas Realty, Samantha Woltz, took on the job of sorting through name tags. Once the As and Bs and Cs were all together, they arranged them on a black velvet table awaiting the event's 300 attendees.

Many Tasks

In the ballroom, Michael Blanks and John Stehle left leaflets in chairs for the dinner's attendees to read. Amy Hicks joined them to usher guests to their tables. Mona Cofer and Beth Williams helped people find their name tags, and Mica Wlsh laid out the sponsors' literature just so.

For the organizers of Triad BioNight, they were the best kind of help - free.

Nearly two dozen people served on the committee that organized the event details, from the gold chargers and lighted centerpieces to the presentation of the awards.

But the students and professionals that took a few hours out of their normal schedules truly brought the event to life.

"Without our volunteers, this event would not happen," said Gwyn Riddick, director of the Biotechnology Center's Piedmont Triad office.

Gratitude.

That's what the workers are saying they feel for their jobs, building the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's 20,000-square-foot addition.

"To a person, these folks say they're thankful to have this job," said Chris Krueger, project construction manager.

The addition should employ at least 200 people by the time it's completed next fall.

"The Biotechnology Center's mission for the past 25 years has been creating jobs in the biotech sector statewide," said Norris Tolson, the Center's president and CEO.

"But in this case, we're also delighted that we're able to help provide paychecks to these excellent North Carolina construction workers during this weak economy and continued downturn in building nationwide. It's especially meaningful this time of year."

Wrecking Rock, Pouring Concrete

Wednesday, for example, brought 22 people placing, spreading and screeding concrete for the foundation of the 20,000-square-foot, four-story building addition. There were also three electricians and a plumber. And several demolition workers also stayed busy breaking through rock that has gotten in the way of parking lot and building construction.

"So far we haven't seen the full complement of workers on the site," said Krueger, "and we probably won't until about January, after the steel goes up. But from January through June or so, we'll have days where easily 100 people will be working on this addition at one time.

"And close to April it'll probably be more, as crews install the terra cotta skin on the outside of the building while all the other trades work inside -- sheetrockers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, the whole group."

And the work is not all going to men. Though most of the workers are men, the project manager and the project eingineer for the general contractor, Skanska, are women.

"I just heard some of the concrete guys say they're starting to wonder already what they'll have next when the foundation is finished on this project," said Krueger. "It reinforced how grateful they are to have had this work during this rough time."

Not just dirt-moving anymore ... things are moving along now. Half the foundation has been completed.

Not just dirt-moving anymore ... things are moving along now. Half the foundation has been completed.

Pioneer Surgical Technology, which has a research facility in Greenville started with the help of $190,000 in funding from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in 1995, has entered the Chinese market with its full range of spinal-fusion products.

Pioneer's Chinese partner, Bonovo Orthopedics, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of orthopedic products, has received its government's approval to distribute Pioneer's full product line there.

Pioneer, which has R&D and manufacturing facilities in Greenville and in Woburn, Mass., won the prestigious Frost & Sullivan 2009 North American Technology Innovation of the Year Award for its E-Matrix Tissue Scaffold, launched in the United States at the beginning of the year.

The Marquette, Michigan-based firm entered North Carolina's orthobiologics scene in 2007 when it bought the small Greenville-based startup firm Encelle, which had developed the E-Matrix tissue regeneration scaffolding technology for orthopaedic and other therapeutic uses. Encelle's start-up was aided by the Biotechnology Center funding.

Read the full news release

Students from eight North Carolina universities will be able to study food science and nutrition at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, thanks to a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The grant will be used to expose graduate students to what is known as a transdisciplinary approach to problem-solving, according to Jack Odle, Ph.D., William Neal Reynolds professor of nutritional biochemistry at North Carolina State University. Odle led the effort to apply for the grant and will direct the program.

Transdisciplinary education is a relatively new concept in academic circles that refers to the idea that many of today's scientific questions are so complex they cannot be adequately addressed by scientists or experts with expertise in only one area. Rather, scientists are likely to be more effective if their training stretches across disciplines.

The students will structure their training to address research questions that are transdisciplinary in nature.

Students accepted into the program, to be known as Kannapolis Scholars, will get about $38,000 during a 15-month period for tuition, housing and other expenses. A key element of the program is what Odle called a 10-week "rotation" each summer, working in a lab at the Kannapolis campus.

The eight universities with programs at Research Campus are:

• Appalachian State University (Human Performance Laboratory)


• Duke University (Translational Medicine Institute)


• North Carolina A&T State University (Center of Excellence for Post-Harvest Technologies)


• North Carolina Central University (Nutrition Research Program)


• North Carolina State University (Plants for Human Health Institute and N.C. MarketReady)


• University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Bioinformatics Research Center)


• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Nutrition Research Institute)


• University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Center for Research Excellence in Bioactive Food Components)

Eerum Husain, 15, an artistic sophomore at Green Hope High School in Cary, has won $250 and second-place honors in a biotechnology poster competition involving hundreds of students in 10th, 11th and 12th grades throughout the United States and Canada.

Husain's biology teacher, Master Teacher Rebecca Townsend, has been involved in numerous educational outreach programs with the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Townsend was subsequently nominated by the Biotech Center a few years ago, and sponsored by Syngenta, to attend the National Biotechnology Teacher-Leader Program accompanying the annual BIO international conference, where she encountered the Biotechnology Institute's Lilly BioDreaming Poster Competition, sponsored by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

As a result, Townsend encouraged Husain to create a poster this year and enter it into the competition. She did, and the quality of the work led to the cash, the honor and the chance to display her artwork, as one of the top 12 finalists, during the Biotechnology Institute's Conference on Biotechnology Education, to be held April 30 through May 5 in Chicago.

The winning posters will also be displayed during the BIO 2010 International Convention, where more than 20,000 convention attendees from around the world can view them.

"I wanted to say thank you and that you directly impact students' lives," said Townsend, in proudly announcing her student's success to Bill Schy, Ph.D., manager of the Biotechnology Center's education and training program.

"We strongly believe that providing opportunities for talented and dedicated teachers like yourself pays big dividends in the impact that you have on your students," Schy responded. "We love to hear about results like these. Just keep 'em coming!"

Each year the Biotechnology Institute invites all public and private school children and youth organizations to showcase their artistic talent and their commitment to the public understanding of the promise and challenges of biotechnology through the poster competition.

Founded by members of the biotechnology community in 1998, the Biotechnology Institute is an independent, national nonprofit organization based in Arlington, VA. It's dedicated to educating teachers, students and the public about the promise and challenges of biotechnology.

Read the full news release

Lots of concrete is being mixed and poured today. I don't know the difference between footings and a foundation, but I think that's what they're doing.

Lots of concrete is being mixed and poured today. I don't know the difference between footings and a foundation, but I think that's what they're doing.

A woman with extensive credentials in science and medicine returned to the UNC Charlotte campus for two days recently to support the university's efforts to recruit and promote women on its science and math faculty.

Gail Cassell, Ph.D., a research scientist at Indiana-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and a board member of the university's Charlotte Research Institute, talked to students, faculty and staff about the critical role of mentoring to help women achieve success in scientific careers.

She also warned that the United States Food and Drug Administration suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and said the agency is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities

Cassell, vice president for scientific affairs and a Distinguished Lilly Research Scholar for Infectious Diseases, was invited back to the Charlotte campus for two days of talks after successfully lecturing on infectious disease issues there two years ago.

She spoke as part of the university's program funded by the National Science Foundation called ADVANCE, established to create an institutional environment that supports the recruitment and career progression of women faculty with an emphasis on those in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) departments to fulfill the institution's mission. The series was entitled, "Towards a More Diverse Academy: Women Taking the Lead."

Cassell has served as an advisor on infectious diseases and indirect costs of research to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and has been an invited participant in numerous Congressional hearings and briefings related to infectious diseases, anti-microbial resistance, and biomedical research.

Morrisville-based drug development firm Addrenex has converted start-up loan help from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center into a $29 million buy-out.

Founded in 2006 with the help of $160,000 in loans from the Biotechnology Center, Addrenex has been purchased by Atlanta-based Sciele Pharma, a subsidiary of Osaka, Japan's Shionogi pharmaceutical company.

Last July Sciele bought a $6 million equity stake in Addrenex -- and the right to increase that share by 10 percent. Sciele also agreed in that deal to make regulatory milestone payments of up to $11 million, and royalty payments to Addrenex on product sales, for an experimental treatment for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

Addrenex said the total value of the sale of its outstanding shares is approximately $29 million, excluding those previously owned by Sciele. Addrenex has only nine employees, though company officials said the firm expects to remain in North Carolina despite the new ownership.'Designed to be Nimble'

"The company was designed to be small and nimble, and to move quickly on a limited budget through the development and regulatory process," said Addrenex CEO Moise Khayrallah, Ph.D.

"Our approach was to leverage our expert team of employees and consultants to identify and develop drug candidates for indications with a high probability of technical success and a clear development and regulatory path to approval."

In less than three years, Addrenex put four products into clinical trials and collected more than 400 compounds for future development to treat hypertension, ADHD, narcolepsy, procedural sedation, insomnia, menopausal flushing and dermatologic indications.

'A Great Opportunity'
"From the beginning, we saw a great opportunity with Addrenex. The company is a tremendous success story for the state," said John Richert, vice president of Business and Technology Development for the Biotechnology Center.

"The company's leadership is experienced and pragmatic, focusing on minimizing risk as much as possible while rapidly progressing through regulatory approvals. Their virtual business model requires the right mix of experience - from science to commercialization."

In the wake of the sale, the company has repaid the Biotechnology Center $203,511.39 in principal and interest -- $7,477.62 interest on a $25,000 loan and $36,033.77 on a $135,000 loan.

The Biotechnology Center also took warrants in the company as part of the loan agreements. With Addrenex's sale, those warrants generated a cash payout of $289,323.70 that can help fund such loans to other budding biotech companies around the state.

Read the full news release

Researchers from Durham-based Aldagen have reported positive early clinical study results for two of the firm's lead products, stem cell therapies designed to improve blood flow to the limbs and hearts of people suffering from circulatory problems.

Aldagen is a biopharmaceutical company developing proprietary regenerative cell therapies that target unmet medical needs.

The results of the Phase I/II clinical trials, reported in poster presentations at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2009 in Orlando, show Aldagen's ALD-201 and ALD-301 were well tolerated, increased blood flow and improved patients' clinical status.

ALD-201 targets patients with ischemic heart failure and ALD-301 is being developed to treat patients with reduced blood flow to the limbs, a condition called called critical limb ischemia

"We are very excited with the results" from the studies, said Emerson Perin, M.D., PhD, FACC, the Texas Heart Institute's director of clinical research for cardiovascular medicine and medical director of its Stem Cell Center, who gave the poster presentations.

Aldagen recently renewed its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue an initial public offering of stock. When the company explored the IPO listing on the Nasdaq exchange in May 2008 it was reported to have the potential of raising $80.5 million. The company has reportedly raised some $56 million in venture capital.

Farewell to the hydraulic rock breaker! We sure hope he doesn't have to come back.

Farewell to the hydraulic rock breaker! We sure hope he doesn't have to come back.

The sun is out and there's lots of dirt-moving activity this morning. It's actually wonderful to see and hear after last week's rain.

Gov. Bev Perdue announced today that international biopharmaceutical company Talecris Biotherapeutics is expanding its manufacturing facilities near Clayton.

Talecris will make the investment over seven years.

"The competition for these types of jobs is fierce," Perdue said.

"The fact that Talecris has found the tools it needs to succeed in North Carolina shows why this state's business climate is consistently named as the best in the nation."

Full News Release

It still looks too wet to work, but the "pond" is being drained and ... is that blue sky?

It still looks too wet to work, but the "pond" is being drained and ... is that blue sky?

The rain has stopped, for now, and the water appears to be draining.

The $486 million Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics manufacturing plant will officially open in Holly Springs on November 24.

A select group of elected officials, North Carolina business and economic development leaders and news reporters have been invited to witness the ribbon cutting for the world's first large-scale flu cell culture and adjuvant manufacturing facility.

Though it won't initially be federally approved for selling the vaccines it produces in vat-grown cells rather than in eggs, as is the decades-old traditional method, the 430,000-square-foot facility is expected to pass muster with federal inspectors and be fully operational next year.

Its 350 employees will be able to produce seasonal flu cell culture vaccines, pre-pandemic vaccines and 150 million doses of pandemic vaccine within 6 months of influenza pandemic declaration.

Daniel Vasella, Novartis' chairman and CEO, will join in the celebration, along with two key executives of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics--CEO Andrin Oswald and Matthew Stober, global head of technical operations.

Other guests will include representatives of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control.

Participants will also get a guided tour of the facility.

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority gave Novartis a $289 million contract to support the design, construction, validation and licensing of the plant, making it the largest biomanufacturing construction project in the U.S. The total value of the site may reach $600 million, officials said.

The Holly Springs site, first announced in 2006, is aimed at streamlining vaccine production to prevent shortages and better respond to surprises as new strains of flu virus evolve. It will add to Novartis' existing North Carolina employment totaling about 680 workers at facilities in Greensboro and Wilson.

Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics is a division of Novartis AG, based in Basel, Switzerland.