New Jersey Entrepreneur

For over twenty years business incubators nationwide have been helping entrepreneurs develop and grow successful businesses while promoting innovation, economic development, and job creation. These concentrated business-building communities began to spring up in the industrial Northeast in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Today, in New Jersey and elsewhere, incubation communities continue to prosper, offering support services and resources that are tailored to assist young firms during their first years of operation and bringing the ideas of entrepreneurs into fruition.  The National Business Incubator Association (NBIA), which consists of over 2,000 individuals worldwide and 1,400 members in the United States partnered in 2010 with the New Jersey Business Incubator Network (NJBIN) that has thirteen member incubators to collaboratively advance incubation. The NBIA includes business incubator managers, developers and others interested in business incubation, entrepreneur support, economic development, technology commercialization, and innovation.

The partnership between NBIA and NJBIN will allow New Jersey incubators to continue on their path to success. With the benefit of national support, New Jersey’s growing businesses will continue to both boost the economy and contribute to the growing job market, as they allow for the development of exciting new technologies, products, and business concepts.  As David Monkman, president of the NBIA, notes “With the goal of bolstering effectiveness on both the state and local levels, the partnership between NBIA and NJBIN is just one example of NBIA’s ability to foster programs and policies that further our country’s interests at a global level, by harnessing the intellectual and entrepreneurial power of those at the cutting edge of their industries.”

Jerry Creighton, Sr., the current NJBIN President, expands on this idea, offering his view of this new partnership: “Incubation, technology/biotechnology development, and funding support are key components to retain and create jobs, advance technology, and retain and attract business interest and capital investments needed to make our state more competitive. This alliance will serve to raise awareness necessary to advance needed relationships with the general public, elected officials, policymakers and thought leaders.”

There are numerous success stories in New Jersey that represent the range of business triumphs associated with incubation. Take, for example, four graduates from the Commercialization Center for Innovative Technologies, a member incubator of NJBIN, that showcase how biotechnology companies have furthered regional economic development in central New Jersey:  Amicus Therapeutics, GENEWIZ, Chromocell, and Sophion Bioscience, Inc.  All of these companies benefited from support from CCIT during crucial points in their development and, as a result of this assistance, they have expanded from their small incubation spaces to national and international offices, while initiating a trend of job creation in the central New Jersey area.

Probably most notable of these four companies is Amicus Therapeutics, whose CEO John Crowley had his family’s story chronicled in the movie “Extraordinary Measures.”  Amicus is a public company that has raised approximately $240M to date through both private and public financing. In October 2010, Amicus entered into an exclusive worldwide agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Rare Disease Division to develop and commercialize Amigal for the treatment of Fabry disease.  As of year end 2010, Amicus had over 100 full-time employees, the majority of whom were located at its Cranbury, NJ, headquarters.

GENEWIZ, Chromocell, and Sophion Bioscience, Inc. all have passed laudable milestones in becoming growth companies. In less than a decade, Chromocell has become a robust company moving from its modest incubator space two years ago to a 15,000-square-foot space also on the EDA’s technology campus.  GENEWIZ, with less than ten employees occupying a 1600-square foot space in CCIT in 2002, is now a global enterprise with over 80,000-square feet of laboratory and office space and hundreds of employees working out of their current headquarters in South Plainfield, NJ, in addition to satellite laboratories in San Diego, Maryland, and Boston. GENEWIZ also has expanded into global operations, with two facilities in China. Sophion Bioscience Inc.’s first employee, Chris Mathes, Ph.D. established the company’s U.S. branch in January 2005 and moved into the CCIT in September of 2005.  The group has now grown to nine people. Two of these employees are recent Rutgers graduates and one part-time intern is presently a Biomedical Engineering student at Rutgers.

Each of the above companies serves as an example of why businesses that begin their lives in incubators have significantly increased chances of long-term viability.  Impressively, according to the National Business Incubation Association, member incubators have reported that 87 percent of all firms that have graduated from their incubators are still in business.  In 2010 the 464 New Jersey incubator companies generated revenues of $154 million, brought $91 million in 3rd party funding to New Jersey, graduated 54 self sustaining companies and created and retained over 1,800 new higher paying jobs. These successful companies are representative of those all over the nation whose successes are due in large part to the strategic insight and structured support that incubators offer fledgling businesses.