Maryland mulls 'vaccine manufacturing capital of the world' dream

some states really see the biosciences as an economic engine...It would be interesting to gather all this together into one package...


31/08/2006 - Bruised by Novartis’s snub over a $600m (€466m) vaccine plant, Maryland has commissioned a study on what more the state can do to attract a major cell culture vaccine manufacturing facility there.

Although the study has not yet been released, In-PharmaTechnologist.com has learned that in its findings the report suggests that the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland will need to work much harder to attract biotech investment given the financial incentives that other states provide.
The state had been in the running with North Carolina and Georgia for Novartis's plant, which will be the first facility in the US to use novel cell culture technology, but Aris Melissaratos, Maryland's secretary of the Department of Business and Economic Development, said that other states were willing to give away free land and so Maryland couldn't compete with that sweetener given this region's high real estate prices.

Nevertheless, the state still has several firms that have committed to building manufacturing plants there, such as MedImmune and Emergent BioSolutions, yet the selection of North Carolina by Novartis stroke a raw nerve among those who have higher aspirations for Maryland.

“Maryland is doing exactly what it can and should be doing to attract more biotech firms and the vaccine feasibility study is a prime example,” Morgan Wallace, of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, the organisation behind the report, told In-PharmaTechnologist.com.

link to full article from in-pharma tech