Justin Catanoso - The Business Journal
The Krispy Kreme doughnuts at the Triad booth went fast. The napkins with details about Winston-Salem's emerging biotech industry got featured in The Wall Street Journal. And more than 200 biotech-minded people attended a Triad-sponsored reception.
By all accounts, the Triad -- particularly a trio of pharmaceutical firms and the Piedmont Triad Research Park in Winston-Salem -- succeeded in getting noticed at the world's largest annual biotechnology conference in Toronto last week.
"We really hit the ball in Canada," says Bill Shore, Triad manager for the state Department of Commerce, who attended Bio 2002. "I've got three potential Canadian clients that I'm mailing information packages to right now."
At the reception, biotech executives from Canada, England, Finland, Germany, Singapore and several American states dropped by the event to network with, among others, executives from Targacept and Kucera Pharmaceuticals in Winston-Salem and TransTech Pharma in High Point.
"There was a huge amount of networking going on," says Russ Read, CEO at Kucera. "We met with two companies that are planning visits here." One should not, however, be persuaded to think that the Triad will soon to swiping business from the nation's established biotech hotbeds in California, Boston or even Research Triangle Park. But you've got to start somewhere.
"North Carolina to me is well known for its pharmaceutical industry," says Peter Pekos, CEO of Dalton Chemical Laboratories in Toronto. "But I did not know until recently that it had such a developed biotech community." Pekos' 90-person firm offers lab services -- molecule screening and drug development -- to big drug companies. Asked if he recognizes the difference between RTP and the Triad, he says, "Not really, but I'm beginning to learn about it."
Essentially, Pekos' interest in the state is in securing contracts with drug companies for work he would take back to Toronto. Such a partnership could aid a Triad firm if it helped get a potential drug to market faster -- a long-term benefit at best.
"We're looking for new and emerging companies who are at a stage where they need to contract out their chemistry research," says Denis Dalton, business development manager with Dalton Chemical Laboratories, who is planning his first trip to North Carolina in August.
Even though Dalton attended the Triad-sponsored reception last week, and was impressed with what he saw and heard, he still didn't quite understand that RTP and the Triad are different regions 90 miles apart.
"I guess I've got a lot to learn," says Dalton, who admits that his knowledge of North Carolina prior to last week was pretty much limited to the golf courses at Pinehurst. "I hear you've got great golf down there. After that, it's a new, new territory for me."
About Dalton Chemical Laboratories Inc.
Dalton Chemical Laboratories Inc is a contract pharmaceutical manufacturer that supplies chemistry and analytical services to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in the areas of medicinal chemistry, fine chemical manufacture, custom peptides and antisense oligo production. Dalton has a site Establishment License and is registered with Health Canada as a drug testing lab. Dalton provides cGMP manufacturing and sterile filling capabilities to its customers at any stage of the regulatory process (Phase I, II, III or commercial). In its state-of-the-art cGMP facilities, Dalton can produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), at the gram or kilogram scale. Dalton can carry out sterile fills to produce batches of finished drug product in vials or syringes, either aseptically filled or terminally sterilized, under fully validated conditions.
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