The North Carolina Biotech Center, long a linchpin in the state’s enviable success in the life sciences industry, may see a resurgence in the funding the legislature previously cut when it meets again, says Norris Tolson, president and CEO.

Tolson, in a wide-ranging interview prior to his planned retirement as leader of the Center once a new president/CEO is selected this summer, said, “I believe the Biotech Center budget will resurrect itself. We spent a lot of time in the winter months answering some questions asked of us by the General Assembly. We put a report together – it’s accessible as a public document.

“It says this industry has served North Carolina very well and we ought to continue to invest in it and reinvest in those areas that were productive, but that we can’t do now because of the budgets.”

Is privatization of economic development good for NC?

Tolson admitted they were not happy about needing to cut some of the Center’s programs due to the cuts, particularly the education program training workers and teachers in the biotech industry. However, he said, “The report has been favorably received by the General Assembly….I’m confident from the reception we’ve received so far that we will see some resurgence in biotech funding.”

Asked if, as some in the General Assembly seem to prefer, privatizing economic development ideas is a good idea in NC, Tolson said, “It’s an alternative that needs to be studied. A lot of people tried the private model and it has worked in some places and it hasn’t worked so well in others. It depends on how they ultimately put it together.”

Tolson said that from his conversations with NC Secretary of Commerce Sharon Decker, he believes “She will use the model we have created at the Biotech Center for other sectors and clusters they intend to create. “

Just what is that model?

The Biotech Center model

“What we do well at the Biotech Center is create jobs and wealth in the life sciences. We start at the very inception of ideas and we pair the idea with an entrepreneur, a CEO, and fund company creation at the very earliest stage. So we are literally creating jobs or the potential for jobs very early in the process The ideas are in total infancy It’s when there is no other funding.”

The Biotech Center has “30 to 40 in the chute right now, very, very small start-up companies that got their creation funding from the Center. The ideas and the work was already there. We step in to match the idea with someone who can lead it.”

“Company creation is part of our game. I believe these other clusters will have to do that as well in order to grow significant clusters of jobs. I hope it works, because we need the jobs.”

How will the spate of big phama and life science company mergers, such at the recent GSK/Novartis deal affect the industry, especially the start-up environment?

“I think it will have a positive effect,” Tolson said, noting that the large pharmaceutical firms are more and more often turning to start-ups with great technology but not the means to take it all the way home as their R&D arm. “They buy them up and move them into their big companies,” Tolson said.

“It’s becoming awfully expensive to develop products from the beginning all the way to the end, so even the big guys are looking for other ways to leverage their dollars and get to the end result quicker.”

Tolson said the Research Triangle Foundation’s plans to create a new industrial park “Will continue to augment growth.” He believes the plan RTP President Bob Geolas has for the Park “Will add a brand new dimension to what it has to offer the world.”

Tolson points to the greatly expanded areas the Center now works in as one of the major accomplishments of his tenure. “We’re working with natural products in the Western part of the state, marine biotech, medical devices, industrial biotech. And we’re very seriously looking at other areas, such as personal medicine and nano-biotech.”

Emerging opportunities

Two of the most promising areas outside of pharmaceutical companies, he said, are an evolving bio-defense sector, and the state’s already hugely significant AG Bio sector, which is often overlooked by organizations ranking states as biotech hubs.

“We’re all excited about the Bio-Defense initiative,” Tolson said. “With all the activity in NC in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, food security, food safety, and medical devices, we believe we can bring all that knowledge and technology to bear on the defense industry and create a significant new cluster.”

The Center is planning to do a Bio-Defense Summit later this year. “We’ll bring together some significant players around a conference agenda and start to nail down some positions for NC in the defense area and what we need to do.”

AG Bio, Tolson said, has the potential to go from 17 percent of North Carolina employment – already the largest single segment – to $100 billion a year in economic value.  He expects N.C. Agriculture Secretary Steve Troxler to announce soon that the ag sector has hit a record $80 billion,

Tolson points out that “All the major large AG Bio companies are right here in North Carolina. I was in a meeting last week in where one of the AG Biotech company reps said, if you want to be in AG Biotech, you have to be in NC, because that’s where the action is.”

So, Tolson said, “We’re getting ready to put a stake in the ground, working on a little branding program, to use the popular term of the day, that will label North Carolina as THE hub for AG Biotech.”

Several of those new areas offer great potential, he said. “We do a lot of work to put legs under them and now they’re ready to run.”

Picking new leader

Although he isn’t sure what he’ll do next, he’s sure something where he can be useful will pop up. “What my wife said to me is that the one thing I can’t do is stay home and bother her all day long. We’ll find something interesting to do. But the last 55 years or so I’ve worked 65 to 70 hours a week and I want to step back from that a little.”

Tolson said the process of selecting a new leader for the Center is underway now. When he announced his upcoming retirement in February, he told the Center board he would stay on until June or a successor was selected. “The board asked me to overlap for a time with the new CEO. I suspect by the beginning of the new fiscal year (for the Center) in July, we’ll have a new leader.”

Editor’s note: Allan Maurer has reported on the biotechnology industry for 15 years and was a science writer for national magazines prior covering technology for a succession of North Carolina technology news websites. He was a co-founder of WRAL TechWire.