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State builds on biotech success

The annual BioFlorida convention teems with excitement on the heels of recent acquisitions.

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published November 15, 2006

GAINESVILLE - Karin Eastham had a perfectly reasonable response when asked why the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, where she is chief operating officer, was enticed to expand to Orlando from its base in La Jolla, Calif.

"When somebody offers you $350-million to work on medical research, you take it," she said, referring to the total value of state, county, city and private incentives offered - and enthusiastically accepted - by Burnham earlier this year.

Eastham was keynote speaker Tuesday at the annual conference in Gainesville by BioFlorida, the state's biotech trade group. She filled a slot held at the last BioFlorida gathering by the vice president of operations for Scripps Florida, the first big California biotech to be lured to the state. And Eastham followed a morning speech by a representative of Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, the latest La Jolla research group to follow the megadollars to Florida, with a campus planned for Port St. Lucie.

The migration of big-gun biotech researchers to Florida over the past two years has been good for BioFlorida. This year's two-day meeting drew about 400 attendees, about a third more than the 2005 gathering.

David Day, head of technology licensing at the University of Florida, said the coming of Scripps and others has also translated into gains for researchers and would-be entrepreneurs at his institution.

"The whole world changed when Scripps came," he said Tuesday. "Immediately after Scripps was announced, I began pursuing historical Scripps investors because we have something to sell. And UF has been a major beneficiary. We're using this meeting to do deals."

UF is so aggressive about getting a piece of the action that it has announced plans to build a facility adjacent to Burnham's campus in Orlando's Lake Nona area. The University of Central Florida will also have a medical school in the same research park.

Eastham, who has been handling details of Burnham's expansion, said the campus is on track to open in 2009 but wants to recruit scientists to a temporary lab at Florida's Blood Centers' Orlando facility by mid 2007.

Burnham, founded in 1976, has about 750 employees and a $90-million operating budget in La Jolla. It is No. 5 in NIH (National Institutes of Health) funding. Scripps is No. 1.

Eastham said that by 2016, Burnham's La Jolla campus will have about 1,000 employees and a $200-million budget. The Orlando campus, meanwhile, will have more than 300 employees and a $90-million budget. "And by then it will be self-supporting with grants," she said.

In Florida, Burnham's research will emphasize diabetes/obesity and translational medicine focusing on bringing promising drugs to market.

Eastham said Burnham's representatives have been amazed by the warm reception they've received in Florida, both from government officials and private philanthropists. "The public understands the need to invest in health care technology," she said. "Everything is in place to make the biotech cluster concept work in Florida."

And unlike Scripps, which was blocked by environmentalists from building on its original site in Palm Beach County, Burnham hopes to avoid any such problems.

Showing a rendering of Burnham's proposed 175,000-square-foot "green" building for Orlando, Eastham said, "We hope the environmentalists will welcome us to Florida."

[Last modified November 14, 2006, 23:59:42]