$2.5M Biotechnology Center Grant Boosts Advanced Medical Technologies
Posted: 03-17-2009 : RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has approved a landmark $2.5 million, four-year grant to help establish a new entity that will support job creation by growing the state’s medical device and related technologies sector.

The Center of Innovation grant is the culmination of a year-long planning process that found North Carolina has a growing industry base, strong universities to drive technology development, and investment capital to build a new industry sector around advanced medical technologies.

“The Biotechnology Center has once again demonstrated imagination and foresight in laying the groundwork for future economic development,” said Sam Taylor, president of the North Carolina Biosciences Organization, which led the planning effort.

“With this support, the advanced medical technologies Center of Innovation will pilot a new multi-institutional model for accelerating commercialization of healthcare innovations and supporting the growth of companies that bring new medical technologies to market.”

Advanced medical technologies (AMT) include complex medical devices, medical instruments, and diagnostics, as well as similar technologies that incorporate elements of biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology and regenerative medicine.

This four-year grant builds on a $100,000 planning grant awarded a year ago to a group of interested business, academic, government and non-profit leaders brought together by the Biotechnology Center to define the state’s economic opportunities in this area.

The planning group worked to benchmark what other regions were doing in this sector. They developed an initial set of goals and strategies, vetted them with stakeholders and created a preliminary business plan.

This initial plan outlines how the proposed AMT Center of Innovation intends to create statewide benefits by supporting innovation, commercialization, company creation, business growth and new jobs in the state’s advanced medical technologies sector.

The proposed center will not be a brick-and-mortar lab or production site, but will instead be an experienced team dedicated to promoting the growth of North Carolina’s advanced medical technologies community. Activities will include outreach to innovators at North Carolina hospitals and research institutions; improving inventors’ access to mentors, potential licensors and innovation service providers; working with economic development organizations to attract national attention to North Carolina’s medical technologies assets; and developing new sources of funding for AMT commercialization activities.

“North Carolina is already home to a promising and robust cluster of advanced medical technologies companies,” said J. Greg Davis, president and CEO of Tryton Medical and project senior executive for this planning effort. “Our state’s strengths in biotechnology, information technology, regenerative medicine, medical devices and other technological disciplines provide us with an ideal opportunity to promote future economic growth based on the convergence of existing medical technologies with these complementary innovation assets.”

Leader sought

Taylor said NCBIO and its AMT planning partners have launched a nationwide search for a founding president for the new entity. People interested in the position should contact Taylor at 919-281-8960.

After the new entity launches in May, said Taylor, the Biotechnology Center grant will be matched, and ultimately replaced as required by the grant, by financial support from advanced medical technologies community stakeholders benefiting from its operations, from conference sponsorships and from fee-for-service revenues.

The grant funding will be paid in tranches as business milestones are reached, including achieving funding recruitment goals and creating new companies.

The Biotechnology Center created the Centers of Innovation program to accelerate commercialization in specific sectors of the life sciences and to create new businesses and jobs across the state.

Other coalitions around the state are working to create self-sustaining entities that will assist in technology commercialization and industry sector development in natural biotechnology and integrative medicine, marine biotechnology, and nanobiotechnology.

The Biotechnology Center is a private, non-profit corporation supported by the N.C. General Assembly. Its mission is to provide long-term economic and societal benefits to North Carolina by supporting biotechnology research, business, education and strategic policy statewide.

Contact: Chris Brodie, vice president of corporate communications, North Carolina Biotechnology Center, chris_brodie@ncbiotech.org or 919-541-9366. Visit the Biotechnology Center's Web site at www.ncbiotech.org.


Major medical technologies companies with operations in North Carolina include BD Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, Smith & Nephew, and Teleflex Medical.

Among the dozens of small advanced medical technology firms growing in the state are:

• Advanced Liquid Logic, a Morrisville-based microfluidics lab-on-a-chip spinout from Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Its technology can test droplets of fluid even smaller than a microliter.
• Affinergy, an RTP company that develops coatings and medical devices for the orthopedic and cardiovascular markets. Its technology, patented at Duke, was named 2005 Innovation of the Year by Frost & Sullivan in the category of Medical Device Coatings.
• Bioptigen, a Durham firm developing ophthalmic optical coherence tomography – a non-invasive, high-resolution optical imaging system for use in drug discovery, genomics, toxicology and oncology. Bioptigen won the Frost & Sullivan 2008 North American Excellence in Research Award. Entegrion, in Research Triangle Park, spun out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University to develop advanced textiles that stop bleeding.
• Janus Development Group in Greenville, which is marketing the Speech Easy anti-stuttering device developed at East Carolina University.
• Laam Science, an RTP company spun out of a discovery by scientists at North Carolina State University’s college of textiles and Emory University. It makes a durable fabric surface treatment that, when subjected to ordinary light, kills or inactivates virtually all viruses and most bacteria. It’s especially useful for such applications as surgical masks.
• Oncoscope, a Durham firm developing proprietary optical imaging systems for guided biopsy in epithelial tissues in the esophagus, colon, lung, cervix, and bladder. Oncoscope’s systems are non-invasive and are used during conventional endoscopic examinations where 85% of cancers start.
• Oriel Therapeutics, a RTP company developing dry-powder inhaler platforms for improved treatment of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and other respiratory ailments. Oriel currently has a range of dry powder inhalers targeting both multi-dose and unit dose delivery applications.
• Sicel Technologies, a Morrisville company marketing miniature wireless sensors designed to be implanted into unresectable, solid-mass tumors for the purpose of gathering data on tumor cell kinetics and physiology. The system uses radio frequency coupling to transfer data to a hand-held monitor.
• Tryton Medical, an RTP company developing a bifurcated stent designed to address plaque build-ups in the circulatory system where one artery branches off from another. Tryton’s Side Branch Stent System™, which offers a dedicated strategy for bifurcation stenting, has demonstrated excellent initial clinical results and is available in Europe.