CEO Roundtable: Life-science companies counter COVID, face supply-chain instability

Northern Colorado life sciences companies feel the supply chain crunch as parts and packaging struggle to make their way to where they’re needed.

Industry leaders who joined BizWest’s CEO Roundtable on life sciences Tuesday expressed concerns over rising costs and wait times.

“We are a brand company and our brand is very well known,” Growcentia Inc. CEO Scott Wiley said about the impact supply-chain issues have had on the biotechnology company’s branding.

“The more constraining pinch has been in packaging materials. Bottles, plastic bottles are really hard to get,” Wiley said.

ALS Global Ltd. lab director Shiloh Summy is more optimistic about the effects of supply-chain disruptions on the laboratory testing company.

“It’s a short-term increase in cost, but at the end of the day it levels out,” Summy said.

Increased wait times for packaging and diversification of parts distributors has forced businesses to keep extra stock on hand, contributing to an increased demand for space from startups and established businesses alike. 

Fort Collins tech incubator Innosphere is constructing a 7,500-square-foot building with specialized life science wet-lab spaces. The facility is intended to ease capacity at Innosphere’s current building, as well in Fort Collins overall.

“The lab space that was currently in Fort Collins, in the area, was fully booked,” said Innosphere’s life sciences director Ben Walker.

Growcentia is taking a different approach by opening a different new lab in Loveland. The lack of existing labs available for sale or lease led to this decision.

“We went the build route because there wasn’t anything available on the market,” Wiley said.

The lack of space can be especially hard for newer startups. Many small companies don’t need to lease entire labs for just one or two employees, but still need space to develop technologies. Cardiost Inc. CEO Nicolås Anzellini is focused on raising capital to help the medical implant startup grow.

“Further down the line, we would like to have a space,” Anzellini said.

Location isn’t everything to Statera Biopharma Inc. CEO Michael Handley. Because the immunotherapies company is publicly traded, it doesn’t rely on local venture-capital firms to fund research and development, instead benefiting from investors. 

“As long as the stock price is doing well, they’re happy,” Handley said.

With the rise of remote work and virtual conferencing, Colorado businesses can better compete with companies in more traditional technology hubs. Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti LLP, one of the event’s sponsors, has found one unexpected benefit of the pandemic. As national companies looked to reduce legal costs, they turned toward smaller firms, according to Berg Hill partner David Kerr. 

“We’ve been able to bring in a lot of new clients that have walked away from these big big east coast and west coast firms,” Kerr said.

One focus of Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti has been intellectual-property law, which is the lifeblood of life sciences companies. As companies work on research and development, protecting their IPs becomes paramount.

“From our perspective, we’re an early stage company, so basically our entire budget is R&D right now,” said Burst Diagnostics LLC CEO Charles Henry.

Henry finds research and development paramount to what his company does. By licensing groundbreaking tests for the coronavirus from Colorado State University, the company aims to make point-of-care testing more accessible.

“Testing is capped by an old technology that’s not very good, and a new technology that’s good but very expensive,” Henry said.

Local biotech companies aren’t just set to test people for the coronavirus. Access Sensor Technologies LLC wants to test the air. By testing air inside schools and hospitals, Access Sensor Technologies hopes to decrease transmission.

“I think new habits are forming and people in that air quality space are set to do well,” CEO Thomas Reilly said.

Dennis Paul represented Elevations Credit Union; Ashley Cawthorne and David Kerr represented Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti LLP; and Chris Otto and Sean Nohavec represented Plante Moran at the event, which was sponsored by all three companies.

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