Lost promise: Can region

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But nearly a decade later, a futurr that showed so much promise in2000 — highlightede in Time magazine and The New York Timea — hasn’t played out like most planned. A before-and-after look at the local biotech sector paints ashrinkinbg industry. Of the area’ s six iconic biotechs in the sector’s two have been acquired, two have seen theirr head counts drop to the low double one has movednearly 3,00o miles away and the last is a portion of its originalo size.
Even among the area’se midtier public companies, roughly a half dozeh have been bought or moved in the past year Nobody can point to a single causefor once-bellwethere companies to barely ring a bell anymore, and every biotecu sports its own Some pursued faulty business plans and couldn’tr alter their paths after the genomics revolutionj overtook the region. Some were hobblede by long-clogged technology transfer routes. Stil others cried foul in the venturcapital game, with investors decryiny the region’s lack of veteran entrepreneure and executives complaining about a deartuh of venture capital.
The recession and inactive capitalk marketsadded painful, parting wallops to an industry already broughf to its knees. Some say that in an industru where billions of dollars are spentg before a single pennyt is earned or productis sold, cyclical triumphs and troubles are not isolated to this region. And they argus that acquisitionsrepresent success, not sorrow. But the departures here more noticeable than in other larger life sciences centers suchas Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia leave gaping holes and make many wonder if the localp industry has indeed regressed.
“That’s undeniable — the markety here has contracted dramatically,” said Stefan managing directorof Baltimore-based LLC. “A number of companiesw financed here were financed during the boomof … It’s a shadow of what it used to be.” Whereford DNA Alley? It used to be DNA Alley. In Time magazine bestowed that monike ona 15-mile stretchb of Interstate 270 flanked by Bethesda and Gaithersburg that featurede “one of the world’s largesft and smartest collections of genomic firms.” Rockville scientists won international acclaij when the and a 1998 startup called racer one another to map the humahn genome.
That buzz, and the eventual sequencingf in 2000, led to multiple births and rebirthsz of genomics venture fundsand companies, includingv of Rockville and Gene Logic Inc. of In 2000 alone, Human Genome Sciences rang upnearly $915 milliohn in stock sales and borrowe d $525 million. Celera then raised an eye-poppingb $945 million in a follow-ob stock offering in March 2000. The monty before, Gene Logic, now , raised a comparably meaget $250 million in a public offering.
, and rounded out the othedr flagship companies atthe time, the latter getting and some argue uncontrolled hype, after a 1998 quote in The New York Timexs said the Rockville company could cure cancer in two By spring’s end in 2001, those six companies employedf more than 2,850 people in all. But then DNA Alley hit a massiverevenue roadblock. Genomicsw companies, whose income relied on sellinh newly discovered gene information from theirproprietary databases, foundc that other drug companies did not buy that data fast Starved for revenue, some prominent names in the loca genomics business started fashioning diagnostic testsw and others developed new drug candidatexs themselves — activities that requireds entirely different staffs and skill “These companies created immense then they had trouble capturing said Bruce Robertson, managing director of .
“Some of the slownes of the region comesa from the fact that we were on that path atlock speed, and we’ve been tryinb to transition ever since. But we just didn’ft have the regional DNA to do that.” those six companies look vastly MedImmuneand Digene, while growing, are subsidiariesw answering to their respective British and Dutch corporate parents. once the capital of the I-270 corridor, last year made Calif., its new home, shuttingv down its Rockville office by this Of the three companies stillheadquartered here, Human Genome Sciencee employs the most, with 880 people this The other two, Ore and combined for roughly 25 staffers.
All three companies, together holdingv a mere third of the originalbig six’ s total staff in 2000, are now penny stockzs with nary a drug Significant chunks of onetims office-lab empires are either left unrenewecd or up for sublease.