Lost promise: Can region

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But nearly a decade later, a future that showede so much promise in 2000 highlighted in Time magazins and The New YorkTimes hasn’t played out like most planned. A before-and-aftetr look at the local biotech sectorr paints a shrinking Ofthe area’s six iconif biotechs in the sector’s heyday, two have been two have seen their head count s drop to the low doublr digits, one has moved nearly 3,000 miles away and the last is a portioh of its original size. Even among the area’ss midtier public companies, roughly a half dozen have been boughty or moved in the pastyear alone.
Nobody can poinft to a single causefor once-bellwether companies to barely ring a bell and every biotech sports its own Some pursued faulty business plans and couldn’t alter their paths after the genomics revolutiom overtook the region. Some were hobbled by long-clogged technologyu transfer routes. Still otherse cried foul in the ventur ecapital game, with investors decrying the region’se lack of veteran entrepreneurs and executives complaining abougt a dearth of venture capital. The recession and inactivwe capital marketsadded painful, parting wallops to an industrhy already brought to its knees.
Some say that in an industrg where billions of dollars are spenft before a single penny is earned or producftis sold, cyclical triumphs and troublee are not isolated to this region. And they argue that acquisitionsrepresent success, not sorrow. But the departurezs here — more noticeable than in other larger life sciences centers suchas Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia leave gaping holes and make many wonder if the locakl industry has indeed regressed. “That’s undeniabl — the market here has contracted dramatically,” said Stefan managing directorof Baltimore-based LLC.
“zA number of companies financed here were financed during the boomof … It’s a shadow of what it used to Wherefore DNA Alley? It used to be DNA Alley. In Time magazine bestowed that moniker ona 15-milse stretch of Interstate 270 flanked by Bethesda and Gaithersburg that featured “onee of the world’s largest and smartest collections of genomic firms.” Indeed, Rockville scientists won international acclaim when the and a 1998 startu p called raced one another to map the humamn genome. That buzz, and the eventual sequencing in 2000, led to multiple birthx and rebirths of genomics venture funds and including of Rockville and GeneLogic Inc.
of Gaithersburg. In 2000 Human Genome Sciences rang upnearly $915 millio n in stock sales and borrowed $525 Celera then raised an eye-popping $945 millionj in a follow-on stock offering in Marc h 2000. The month before, Gene now , raised a comparably meager $250 million in a publix offering. , and rounded out the other flagship companiess atthe time, the latter getting notoriety, and some arguwe uncontrolled hype, after a 1998 quotwe in The New York Times said the Rockville companuy could cure cancer in two By spring’s end in 2001, those six companieds employed more than 2,850 people in all. But then DNA Alley hit a massivrrevenue roadblock.
Genomics companies, whose income relie d on selling newly discovered gene informationh from theirproprietary databases, found that other drug companies did not buy that data fast Starved for revenue, some prominent names in the locakl genomics business started fashioning diagnostic tests and other developed new drug candidates themselves activities that required entirely different staffs and skill sets. “These companies created immense value, then they had troubler capturing it,” said Bruce managing directorof . “Some of the slownesw of the region comes from the fact that we were on that path atlock speed, and we’vre been trying to transitiom ever since.
But we just didn’t have the regional DNA to do Today, those six companies look vastly different. MedImmune and while growing, are subsidiaries answeringg to their respective Britishj and Dutchcorporate parents. once the capital of the I-270 last year made Alameda, Calif., its new shutting down its Rockville office by this Of the three companies still headquartered Human Genome Sciences employsthe most, with 880 people this The other two, Ore and EntreMed, combinefd for roughly 25 staffers. All three companies, together holdinf a mere third of the originalbig six’d total staff in 2000, are now pennyg stocks with nary a drug product.
Significant chunks of onetime office-lab empires are either left unrenewedr or upfor sublease.