Rebecca Kaufman surveys the bio-incubator scene throughout the Southeast in this series. Today, the Carolinas.

Part One, with the introduction, covers Flordia: http://techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=5054

Part Two: Georgia

http://techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=5060

SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenwood, SC is home the South Carolina Biotechnology Incubation Facility, which opened in 2002.

The facility houses six laboratory modules, a library, a conference center, offices, and support space and is operated by a Board of Governors in cooperation with the Greenwood County Economic Alliance with State appropriated funds. A five-hundred acre research park, the Greenwood Biotechnology Park, is in development nearby to provide facilities for graduate companies.

The University of South Carolina operates a technology incubator in downtown Columbia, with 43,000 square feet including offices and potential laboratories managed by the USC Research Foundation. Current tenants include several life sciences companies.

NORTH CAROLINA
North Carolina offers biosciences incubators in several locations throughout the state. In Raleigh-Durham, the traditional life sciences stronghold, the First Flight Venture Center is a 16,000 square foot facility offering flexible leases, shared business services, technology support services, and management guidance and counseling for up to 25 emerging technology companies, including life sciences companies.

John Draper, an attorney with over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and private equity investor, serves as President of the Center.
The NC State Technology Incubator is a mix-used incubator that provides an additional 10 wet lab suites on the Centennial campus in Raleigh. The start-up company must have ties to NCSU or wish to establish ties to NCSU research and development.

RTP is also home to several for-profit life sciences incubators, including the Becton Dickinson (BD) Bioventure Center, which provides space, equipment and support services for companies developing technology of strategic importance to BD, including drug and vaccine delivery; biosensors; information technology and cellular and tissue engineering.

To be considered, the candidate company must have a research collaboration in place with BD. The BD facility provides a 2 year maximum stay.

Fourteen companies have participated in the program to date.

Outside of the RTP area, the North Carolina Research Campus under development in Kannapolis will include an incubator for start-up firms which will have access to shared scientific equipment and facilities.

In Greenville, East Carolina University provides the 17,000 square foot Eastern Carolina Technology Center which includes wet lab space.

In Winston-Salem, Piedmont Triad Research Park’s Wet Lab LaunchPad provides short-term wet lab space to attract biotechnology startups. The space, often referred to as a wet-lab “hotel” is offered at sub-markets rates and lease durations. In December 2007, the first tenants were announced and include Carolina Liquid Chemistries Corp (CLC), a company headquartered in California, and Tengion, a venture-capital backed regenerative medicine company.

Wake Forest, a key backer of Wet Lab Launch Pad, also offers incubator type consulting services to high growth companies through its Babcock Demon Incubator, which operates under the Angell Center for Entrepreneurship at Wake Forest’s Babcock Graduate School of Management.

Despite these offerings, the need for incubators remains, notes Ken Tindall, Senior Vice President of Science and Business Development with the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Tindall describes the most significant need as reasonably priced short term space for the earliest of companies. “These are not companies that can sign twelve or even six month leases,” he says. Instead, they are companies that are struggling day to day to move the technology forward and attract financing.

Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org

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