Editor’s note: Douglas Chapnick’s name was misspelled in the original posting of this story.
After a five-year hiccup, the Boulder County bioscience sector is seeing a better day.
“It’s a huge part of Colorado’s economy, of the Front Range economy, of the Boulder County economy,” said Clif Harald, executive director of the Boulder Economic Council, the economic development arm of the Boulder Chamber. “You’d almost be hard pressed to overestimate just how significant it is, and it’s as robust as ever.”
According to the Colorado Bioscience Association — a group that supports companies in the industry through financial resources, advocacy and networking — it represents 720 companies and organizations in the state at all stages of commercialization. This includes pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical devices, research institutions, biotechnology and more.
A portion of those companies — about 175 — reside in Boulder County and employ a total of 5,450 people, according to the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
The economic downturn
In 2014, a major player left the field. Amgen Inc., a multinational pharmaceutical company based in California with ties to the state through its co-founder, University of Colorado Boulder distinguished professor Marvin Caruthers, announced the closure of its operations in Longmont and Boulder.
Amgen operated in Colorado from the 1990s until 2014. Before ceasing operations, Amgen was the largest private biotech employer in the state, according to the Denver Business Journal. There were 430 employees between the Longmont and Boulder campuses at the time.
Earlier that same year, the company sent around 200 jobs to the chopping block when it shuttered its manufacturing of Epogen, a drug used to treat anemia.
A British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca PLC, acquired the former Amgen Boulder property in 2015 for $14.6 million. The Boulder property included a 300,000 square-foot manufacturing facility. Shortly after, it acquired the other Amgen property in Longmont for $64.5 million.
The bioscience giant barely unpacked its bags before announcing the termination of the two Colorado facilities. In January 2019, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment posted the company’s intention to lay off 210 Colorado employees the following March. Neither the Boulder nor Longmont locations reached licensing for commercial operations before closure, as previously reported by BizWest.
In February 2018, Sandoz Inc., a Novartis company, announced its intention to close the pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Broomfield at 2555 W. Midway Blvd. According to a WARN notice filed with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment on Feb. 6, 2018, 65 employees were laid off. This was followed by several other waves of layoffs, eventually reaching close to 450 jobs lost. Sandoz in 2019 sold the facility to CBD manufacturer Mile High Labs for $18.8 million.
The economic upswing
In January this year, AveXis Inc., a subsidiary of the Swedish company Novartis, officially began operating its fourth U.S. location out of a former AstraZeneca campus in Longmont at 4000 Nelson Road. The company focuses on developing treatments for rare neurological diseases.
With the acquisition of the Longmont facility, the company gained 700,000-square-feet of space for biologic drug manufacturing, offices, laboratories, warehousing and utilities.
The company manufactures Zolgensma, a single-dose medicine that treats spinal muscular atrophy. It is referred to as the world’s most expensive drug, costing $2.125 million per patient.
“It is the largest facility in the AveXis network, and once licensed will play a crucial role in helping us achieve the future manufacturing capacity required to meet the global patient need for novel gene therapies,” said Sally Dyer, AveXis Colorado site head, in reference to the Longmont plant.
AveXis has approximately 350 full-time employees in Longmont, hiring 150, including Dyer, from the site’s former owner, AstraZeneca PLC. Dyer said AveXis is proud to carry that legacy forward, as it continues to invest in the community.
“Resulting from the AveXis announcement, FDA approval, and then opening of the facility for production, we have seen a sharp increase in interest from other gene-therapy and bioscience companies from across the country that gives me optimism that we will see sustained growth over time in this industry sector,” said Jessica Erickson, CEO and president of the Longmont Economic Development Partnership.
Meanwhile, the former AstraZeneca/Amgen plant in Boulder could see a new owner. The Colorado Economic Development Commission approved tax incentives on Feb. 20 for an unnamed company, only referred to as “Project Blizzard” but which BizWest identified as Japanese contract drug maker AGC Biologics.
“The displacement of AstraZeneca has been a priority for our organization to address,” said Sam Bailey, Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce vice president of economic development, as reported by BizWest on Feb. 20. “This facility is still new, and it was a major investment. But every day that it sits vacant, the technology there is becoming more dated.”
Also in Boulder County, Boulder-founded Array Biopharma Inc. entered a merger agreement in June 2019 with Pfizer Inc. in which it was acquired for $11.4 billion.
Another biotech giant, medical-device company Medtronic Inc., could grow its presence in Boulder County with a corporate campus in Louisville. In October 2019, it was confirmed Medtronic had eyes on the Phillips 66 lands along U.S. 36 near the Northwest Parkway. The site was formerly the home to StorageTek.
The campus would be built on 90 to 100 acres of the 430-acre property and potentially employ 3,000 people.
“During the past few years, our presence has grown, and we have evaluated how we can accommodate future growth and also optimize our Medtronic-wide presence in Colorado,” Medtronic external communications director John Jordan said in an email. “This new campus would bring together parts of two current Medtronic Colorado campuses located in Boulder and Louisville.”
Medtronic currently employs around 2,000 people in Colorado.
“In the last three years, companies in our ecosystem have raised more than $3 billion,” said Jennifer Jones Paton, CEO and president of the Colorado Bioscience Association, referencing the different companies and research institutions in the state. “That figure rises to over $14 billion with the record-breaking acquisition of Array Biopharma in 2019.”
Boulder County synergies
Harald said that the companies operating in Boulder County feed off of each other’s success.
“They don’t do business here in a vacuum. It’s not like they’re out there by themselves just doing their thing and seeing success. They’re really part of a whole community, a whole network or a whole ecosystem,” Harald said.
According to the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, there are 33 federal labs in the state. Colorado has one of the highest concentrations of federally funded science and research labs.
Employers are attracted to Colorado for its research institutions, concentrated talent and overall lifestyle of the Front Range, said Michelle Hadwiger of the OEDIT. She added that employers consider the state ecosystem when considering locations in the Boulder Valley or other parts of Colorado.
“Tax rates are attractive for multiple industries, but also biosciences companies,” Hadwiger said. “They can recruit affordable talent and also have well-priced real estate in order to meet the needs of the company.”
According to CBSA, Life sciences create more than 92,7000 direct and indirect jobs with an average annual salary of $89,000 in Colorado with $2.8 billion in annual payroll, Jones Paton said.
Lacking anchor companies
“One disadvantage is that we don’t have many bigger, discovery-based enterprises or a sizable anchor company. Several companies — such as Array — had the potential to become large, discovery-based anchors for the industry here, but they were acquired,” Pat Mahaffy, president and CEO of Clovis Oncology Inc., said in an email.
Clovis Oncology is a pharmaceutical company that mainly markets products for treatment in oncology, headquartered in Boulder. It employs 117 people in Boulder.
Mahaffy profiles an anchor business as one that “is a stable, long-term discovery and development organization that has a reasonable employee base and is also a source of spin-out ideas.”
He added that the community needs a company that fits this bill and will become a magnet for employers and talent from outside of the Front Range. Though Clovis is one of the largest biotechnology employers in Boulder County, Mahaffy believes that it is not that anchor business.
The next businesses to make a splash will come out of Colorado’s research institutions, Mahaffy said.
Regional research institutions include the University of Colorado Boulder, Fitzsimmons Innovation Center, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines.
“I do think the research activities happening in the CU labs will ultimately affect capital and our local employee base and help to drive a more robust biotech industry in Colorado,” Mahaffy said.
Venture Partners at CU Boulder, the commercialization arm of the University of Colorado Boulder, supports startups out of the school. Though it supports many projects in different economic sectors, life sciences fill about 40% of its portfolio.
Venture Partners offers commercialization grants and intellectual property services to startups coming directly out of the university, whether created by faculty, students or alumni. It also provides mentorship and education far beyond the immediate community.
Some of the most notable successes to spin out of the university recently are Inscripta Inc. and SomaLogic Inc., said Bryn Rees, assistant vice chancellor for research and innovation and managing director for Venture Partners at CU Boulder.
“Universities are where the deep and foundational research is occurring to discover new drug targets, discover drug candidates, understand in new ways the underlying biology of diseases and other medical conditions,” Rees said.
One company to enter an option agreement with Venture Partners is BioLoomics Inc., which began commercialization in June 2019. It’s research lab is housed on campus.
Douglas Chapnick, who conducted his graduate studies at CU Boulder, developed the company’s biosensor technology when conducting research with professors William Old and Xuedong Liu.
The research was a Rapid Threat Assessment and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The biosensor technology examines the toxicity, effects, and viability of a drug prior to Phase I clinical testing for other companies. Some of BioLoomics’ clients include NeuroLucent Inc., a company that develops novel therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, and Boulder-based Amidebio LLC., which is a preclinical stage biotech company that develops insulin-related drugs.
Chapnick said that university research labs aid the life science sector by allowing startups to seek help from the school.
“The industry can all come to CU and ask for help. That essentially circumvents the need to pay a lot of money to get a consultant and also allows people to pivot a lot in the company,” Chapnick said.
Another CU Boulder-housed company is VitriVax Inc. The company was created by current CU Boulder professors, Robert Garcea and Theodore Randolph. It services other companies by taking an injectable vaccine and making it thermostable, up to 70 degrees Celsius, or 158 degrees Fahrenheit. This means they can be stored without refrigeration and could benefit developing regions. Another technology VitriVax adds to a vaccine is combining multiple doses into a single injection.
The vaccine to treat Human Papillomavirus typically has a two-dose minimum with an interval of six through 12 months. The company used the HPV antigen in its initial research and found that its one-dose version performed better, said Matthew Raider, VitriVax CEO.
Randolph and Garcea’s research has been active for the better part of a decade, through funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Institute of Health and state funding. However, commercialization began in 2018.
“Having the academic hub at CU Boulder is a significant advantage for us in this startup,” Raider said. He added that this is due to the workforce talent and resources at the university.
© 2020 BizWest Media LLC
