Life Sciences Incubator Hosts "Partners in Progress"
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The Commercialization Center for Innovative Technologies, a Life Sciences business incubator located in North Brunswick, continued its international outreach through its "Partners in Progress" initiative hosting a two day conference on August 24th and 25th with its guest partner, BioCity-Nottingham. BioCity-Nottingham is a like British based Life Sciences business incubator that is located in one of six designated science cities in Britain. A BioCity executive team led by Dr. Nick Gostick, BioCity's Incubator Manager, and Miranda Knaggs, BioCity Marketing & Communications Manager, represented over 70 of their incubator companies in one on one meetings with CCIT's early stage Life Science tenant companies. Also included were representatives from two successful BioCity incubator companies, R5 Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and Pharmaceutical Development Services, and UK Trade & Investment. The meetings served to facilitate an exchange of information between tenants at each of the incubators with the goal of identifying partnering opportunities, as well as reviewing support mechanisms for U.S. businesses interested in entering the UK/EU life science market.
BioCity Nottingham was launched in 2003 and has grown to become one of Europe's largest bioscience incubators. Over 35 million pounds of investment money has been placed into companies residing in BioCity which has resulted in the hiring of over 550 employees. Similar to CCIT in New Jersey, BioCity attempts to maximize the chances of success of life science companies by creating a hub of related businesses in a close and defined geographical area, offer cost effective work space and research facilities and offer business support and accessible networks. One excellent example of their model is R5 Pharma which was founded at the end of 2006 and has grown to 60 employees, while expanding to over 11,000 square feet of space in the BioCity incubator. NJEDA CCIT has become one of only 14 business incubation programs in the world that has earned the Soft Landings International Incubator designation since the National Business Incubation Association began the program in 2005. The Soft Landings designation recognizes an incubator's focus on welcoming non-domestic firms into its domestic market with translation services, help cutting through government red tape, access to capital, domestic market research and other programs. The 46,000 square foot CCIT facility provides the most wet labs in the State of New Jersey for incubation which are offered at below market rents. It currently houses 25 early stage Life Sciences companies. More information: www.biocity.co.uk; www.njtechcentre.com
Photo Left to Right: Dr. Emily Mickley, R5 Director of Business Development; Michael Gamlen, Pharmaceutical Development Services Managing Director; Don Shatinsky, CCIT Manager; Miranda Knaggs, BioCity Marketing & Communications Manager; Dr. Nick Gostick, BioCity Incubation Manager; Charles G. Rowell, Vice President North America UK Trade & Investment; Sarah Arblaster, Vice President UK Trade & Investment |
