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No matter what area of Tennessee you look at, biotechnology initiatives are thriving, thanks to the state’s research strengths, a sprinkling of highly successful industries (particularly those medically related) and entrepreneurs taking advantage of support from government, university and economic-development efforts.



“We’re looking to help entrepreneurs create jobs and wealth. That’s the bottom line,” explained Dave Lawrence, director of the Innovation Laboratory at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) in Johnson City. The lab is a premier example of higher education and government collaborating to boost the chances of success for technology-related startups. As a small-business incubator, the lab offers facilities from office space and conference rooms to eight wet labs for chemical and biological research. This is “pretty unusual for business incubators, but one of the areas that we’re specializing in is biomedical and biotech startups,” Lawrence said. “We also have on site a Tennessee Small Business Development Center, which gives free counseling to the tenants in business matters.”



The lab boasts five clients and already has a graduate, Orison Corp. in Johnson City, which was founded to design, manufacture and market a proprietary ultrasound technology platform for breast cancer detection and diagnosis. Of the five current tenants, three are biotech-based:

• Bioinventions, specializing in research related to the use of antioxidants in preventing heart disease, cancer and photoaging of the skin, and promoting wound healing.


• ProteoGenesis, engineering a special class of proteins known as proteases in demand by biochemists and molecular biologists studying disease prevention and cure.


• YASOO Health, developing and marketing disease-specific and wellness supplements.

“This area is not a real hotbed for biotechnology, but we’ve got some unique things here, like the College of Medicine and the College of Pharmacy, along with technology and business faculty and staff and students who are available,” Lawrence said. “So we’re in a unique position here to develop or help support these biotech startups. They tend to pay well, they tend to attract investment capital and they have the potential to create wealth for the investors and the founders.”



That’s the bottom line for biotechnology’s potential statewide, according to Robert Acuff, an ETSU professor in the Center for Nutrition Research and chairman and president of the Tennessee Biotechnology Association (TBA). He described the TBA as “the mouthpiece organization for biotech across the state, and we have members from all areas of the industry, not only those pursuing it from the bench related to the biologies and life sciences, but those that support the industry, whether high-speed computing, to the nuts and bolts, to what you need to operate a laboratory.”



Acuff said the “pinnacle” of the TBA 2007 annual meeting was Gov. Phil Bredesen’s address regarding the potential for biofuel production in Tennessee, yet much of the meeting also focused on Tennessee’s biomedical research strengths — from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis to the ETSU School of Medicine and School of Pharmacy. Acuff also pointed to BioMimetic Therapeutics as “one of the great things that’s happening in Middle Tennessee. We’re extremely excited about that, and think that’s just stellar.”



On March 27, BioMimetic breaks ground on the second of its proposed three buildings on a 10-acre campus called the Cool Springs Life Sciences Center in Williamson County. The company develops and commercializes orthopedic therapies that are a combination of tissue growth factors and devices. Called regenerative medicine, the BioMimetic products promote the fast healing of musculoskeletal injuries and diseases. The new 80,000-square-foot building will house its manufacturing operations, which are moving from the United Kingdom. Production should begin in the first quarter of 2009. The company made news twice in December 2007, signing a $40 million deal to sell its landmark periodontal product, called GEM 21S, and reporting positive clinical trial results for its GEM OS 1 bone graft for the treatment of foot and ankle fusions.



BioMimetic is a case in point of a successful startup founded with the help of venture-capital financing. Encouraging angel investors and venture capitalists to take a look at Tennessee’s biotechnology enterprises is a TBA priority, Acuff said. In fact, at the encouraging of TBA members in Memphis, the organization’s 2008 conference will invite in-state and out-of-state investors, he added.



Memphis’ strong biotech sector is, in no small measure, the result of work by the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a business plan to leverage the area’s competitive biotech credentials. The organization’s president and executive director, Steven J. Bares, points to academic enterprises in Memphis plus industry and clinical capabilities in the orthopedics and musculoskeletal space as critical regional assets. Medical device maker Smith & Nephew has about 1,800 employees at its Memphis facility.



To encourage entrepreneurial efforts that might result in future Smith & Nephew-caliber success stories, Bioworks launched INNOVA in October 2007, an initiative that Bares calls “really critical” to the organization’s mission. INNOVA is an accelerator/seed fund to bring together necessary technologies, entrepreneurs and the money needed to promote collaboration. The initial $11.5 million for INNOVA is provided over five years by MemphisED, a community economic development initiative, and most of it will be used to invest in small, technology-based and, to some extent, service-based companies. The companies will be expected to work with incubators in Memphis such as Emerge Memphis, the FedEx Institute of Technology and Bioworks. Bares said the foundation expects that other philanthropic entities and private donors will augment the initial seed fund.



The INNOVA program is “essentially an entrepreneurship center to really drive the conversion of technology into jobs and economic value,” he said. In February, Dr. Preston H. Dorsett, a former biotech researcher and entrepreneur himself, joined INNOVA as executive in residence, responsible for helping evaluate companies seeking INNOVA’s assistance, providing guidance to accelerate companies’ progress along the road to commercialization and offering business advice for companies when they eventually go public or are purchased by a larger company.







March 2008

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