The Biotech Industry in Alabama
by Mike McClanahan
CBS 42 News
2008-02-20 20:00:00.0
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UAB Professor Dr. Harald Sontheimer is excited about TM-601, a breakthrough cancer drug he pioneered in Birmingham.
It literally takes a smart bomb approach to recurrent glioma, a deadly type of brain tumor which kills thousands of Americans every year.
"These cancers even if you see a solid tumor cells will have migrated out and if the surgeon goes in and removes the tumor within two three months the cells elsewhere in the brain will regrow tumors," said Sontheimer.
Dr. Sontheimer's research revealed that a peptide in the venom of the giant Israeli scorpion, also known as the death stalker, can not only paralyze a cockroach but can actually stop glioma cells from moving around the brain.
“Now you have a compound that in principal could work for humans but how do you get it to the bed side. At this early stage it is very, very difficult to get a pharmaceutical company interested in picking up this technology and developing it into a drug," said Sontheimer.
But Sontheimer was able to secure millions from investors to set up shop at UAB. He said that all the basic ingredients for a successful bio tech operation are here in Birmingham. But 2005 brought a stinging turn of events when the company he created, Transmolecular, moved its headquarters to Cambridge, Massachusetts and took potential revenue out of the city.
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Clinical trials continue at UAB, but Transmolecular’s corporate headquarters are now located only just a few miles from Harvard University and MIT.
The Boston area has long been the biggest biotechnology hotspot on the east coast.
"It continues to be and we always have new companies forming all the time," said Michael Egan.
Egan, Transmolecular’s CEO, says Boston is a prime location to attract the interest of the major pharmaceutical companies which have offices in the area.
"I think really what it has to do with is just more a critical mass, which is, you know, the number of people involved in that industry and the access to those people in a narrow geographical setting," said Egan.
Meanwhile the biotech industry is booming. Biotechnology Association of Alabama Director Kathy Neugent says there has been a big push from the private sector to create that same infrastructure in this state.
"In terms of research we are a success story. The challenge we have in the state of Alabama is translating that research into successful development stories,” said Neugent.
Neugent added, "The Innovation depot in Birmingham for example they provide an excellent entrepreneurial environment so that these emerging companies have what they need to grow to the next stage in their development."
Neugent said the HudsonAlpha Institute in Huntsville is also boosting biotech development in Alabama. Neugent said one key to ensuring that companies which start here - stay here may be to bring a big pharmaceutical company to Alabama.
"I think it will transform the State of Alabama overnight if we can attract a big pharmaceutical company to set up shop whether it is a manufacturing plant, whatever part of their business that it ends up being," said Neugent.
According to a 2007 report in the Birmingham Business Journal, Solvay Pharmaceuticals has been looking at an area in Jefferson County for the site of a $300 million plant. If that happened, Neugent says it could be as significant for the biotech industry in Alabama as the Mercedes plant in Vance has been for the automotive sector.
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