Longmont looking to grow biotech presence

LONGMONT — Longmont is home to at least a dozen bioscience companies, from those that have been focusing on agricultural development for a long time to others that have appeared more recently in pursuit of the next pharmaceutical discovery.

As part of its business development activities, the Longmont Area Economic Council, along with Pratt Management Co. and the law firm of Cooley Godward, sponsors Life Science Thursday, a bimonthly meeting where bioscience players can discuss building the industry in Colorado.

Pratt hosts Life Science Thursday at its Raintree Plaza Hotel and Conference Center. “Longmont has everything the life science industry wants and needs,´ said Frannie Follick-Hood, a Pratt spokeswoman. “Life science businesses recognize that already. Our community of this advanced industry will continue to grow.”

Life Science Thursday began shortly after results of a study of Colorado’s bioscience future were published.

“Out of that study came the conclusion that Colorado has an infrastructure that is beginning to support the emerging biotech industry here in this state,´ said Paul Ray, director of life sciences and biotechnology at the Governor’s Office of Innovation and Technology.

The $185,000 study was conducted by Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute and sponsored by Amgen Inc., the Colorado Economic Development Commission, Colorado Institute of Technology, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, IBM Corp., Life Science and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Ray said the state’s infrastructure has clusters of bioscience businesses and research centers including the Fitzsimons campus of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, the University of Colorado Hospital and the Longmont area.

Colorado State University in Fort Collins has also generated biotechnology activity in the Fort Collins area. Notably, research at CSU helped to lure Heska Corporation to Fort Collins. The company has grown to employ about 250 people.

Similarly, life science firms like Cytomation, XY Inc. and Optibrand all have ties to CSU.

“Wherever you find a biotech cluster you find there are certain elements that exist — research facilities, hospital capacity for doing clinical trials, existing companies that can support the research and educated personnel to staff these companies,” Ray said.

Among the dozen bioscience players in Longmont are Amgen Inc., Array Biopharma Inc., Alpharma Animal Health Inc., STA Laboratories Inc. and Syngenta Seeds Inc. Here’s a brief look at each one:

Amgen (Nasdaq:AMGN) develops human therapeutics based on research in four areas: nephrology, hematology and oncology, bone and inflammation, neurology and endocrinology.

Its products include Aranesp, which stimulates production of red blood cells in chemotherapy patients; Enbrel and Kineret for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis; Epogen, which stimulates the production of red blood cells in people with chronic renal failure; and Neulasta and Neupogen, which stimulate the production of white blood cells during chemotherapy.

The $5.5 billion company’s headquarters is in Thousand Oaks, Calif., but there is a major presence in Boulder County. The Longmont facility employs about 500, and there is a total of 620 employees in the Boulder Valley.

Epogen and Aranesp are manufactured in Longmont, said Jess Graziano, an Amgen spokeswoman. The bulk products are shipped to Puerto Rico where the injectable drugs are finished and put in vials, she said.

Amgen has been in its 650,000-square-foot Longmont facility since 1999. The company also owns 230 acres. The company’s work in Boulder County began because of a collaborative effort on Epogen with the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Longmont acquisition became necessary to expand manufacturing capabilities, Graziano said.

The location is key to corporate growth, said Dave Bengston, vice president Colorado operations. “It’s important because it helps us attract more of the right type of people here. They are more willing to relocation if there’s a semblance of activity in the biotech arena.”

Array (Nasdaq:ARRY) spun off from Amgen in 1998 when Amgen moved its research division to California. Three Amgen scientists, Tony Piscopio, Kevin Koch and David Smitman, all with expertise in small molecule research, recruited a team of 25 scientists and set up their own company, said spokeswoman Tricia Haugeto.

The company does pure research into small molecule drugs. Company scientists use a “discovery platform” — a set of drug discovery tools including chemical compounds that form “lead generation libraries” — to invent new drugs in collaboration with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Array partners include heavy-hitters like Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer and Roche.

With corporate headquarters in Boulder in a former Amgen building, the Longmont facility is very close to the mother ship. The 75,000-square-foot Longmont facility, which houses labs and operations, opened in 2000. The company chose Longmont, Haugeto said, because of its proximity to headquarters and the established employee base.

Array employs about 255 in Boulder County, 100 of whom work in Longmont.

Alpharma Animal Health is a division of Alpharma Inc. (NYSE:ALO), a specialty pharmaceutical company based in Fort Lee, N.J. that manufactures generic pharmaceuticals for human use.

The animal-health division manufactures and markets antibiotic feed additives to the poultry and livestock industries.

The Longmont facility opened as an I.D. Russell facility in 1989, and continues to market products under the Russell brand. Russell was founded in 1913 in Kansas City, Mo. as an animal health company and was purchased by Alpharma in 1999.

Longmont’s 65,000-square-foot plant functions as a mixing and packaging factory for soluble antibiotics, said Alpharma Treasurer Bert Marschio from corporate headquarters. “When an animal is too sick to eat, they will still drink water. You put the antibiotic in the water to treat the animal.”

Improvements are being made to the plant in Longmont that will allow Alpharma to package penicillin, said Casey Kingsley, site controller. Since penicillin is a live biologic, “you need to go through a lot of scrutiny to both at the same facility,” he said, including getting Food and Drug Administration approval.

Alpharma employs about 4,700 worldwide, with about 16 in Longmont. The animal health division contributes about $300 million to the $1.3 billion company, Marschio said.

STA Laboratories offers seed-testing services to the agricultural community. The company’s 20 or so employees provide tests including seed health testing, pathogen identification, hybrid purity, germination, physical purity, resistant gene documentation and others.

Most of the testing is done on flowers and vegetables, but STA also will test field crops like soybeans, said Daniel LaFlamme, director of technical operations. The company has international clients, but their names are confidential, he said.

The company was founded in 1987, when a group of Colorado private investors purchased the seed-testing division of Standard Oil of Ohio, said STA President Darrell Maddox. The company was originally called Seed Testing of America, but since has been known as STA.

Most of the work is done in 8,500 square feet of greenhouses, LaFlamme said, and the company is about to build four more, Maddox added. STA has a second facility in Gilroy, Calif.

Syngenta Seeds is a division of Syngenta International AG, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. Syngenta (NYSE:SYT) is a $6.2 billion international crop protection and seed business that employs 20,000 people in 90 countries. Twenty work in Longmont.

The Longmont site is part of the now-defunct Great Western Sugar Co. In 1985 Swedish seed company Hilleshog purchased the seed division of Great Western, then in 1989 Hilleshog was purchased by 100-year-old agribusiness Sandoz. Sandoz, later merged with Ciba to form Novartus, and in 2000 Novartus agribusiness and Zeneca agrochemicals merged to form Syngenta.

The Longmont plant continues to market sugar beet seeds under the Hilleshog brand. “It gives you continuity in the marketplace,´ said Keith Haagenson, who heads up sugar beet production and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) compliance in Longmont. “The main (Hilleshog) office was here, and it just made sense more from a historical than any business perspective.”

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