UMB plots $675M biotech park expansion

University of Maryland Baltimore leaders are asking the city's architecture review board to approve a $675 million expansion of the UMB BioPark--a move that would triple the size of the planned project. At the moment the site has two research buildings with 470,000 square feet of space, and a third building will open its doors later this year. The BioPark already counts Alba Therapeutics, Gliknik, FASgen, Biomere, and Fyodor Biotechnologies among its tenants, according to the...

MD governor touts a booming biotech biz, new jobs

While the overall economy may be flagging, Maryland says that its biotech industry is booming. And the governor wants to keep the momentum going with a few new industry incentives. Gov. Martin O'Malley told reporters that the biotech industry added more than a thousand jobs in the last three months; that's 10 percent of the state's total tally of new jobs. And he touted a report from Battelle Technology Partnership Practice claiming that the state's biotech industry has been expanding...

Venter Institute raises $53M in sale-leaseback deal

The Venter Institute has raised $53 million through a sale-leaseback deal on its campus in Rockville, MD. And the deal would appear to help advance the institute's plans to build a new research facility on the campus of UC San Diego while shoring up its financial position in Maryland. "We believe that this has positive implications for both JCVI's East and West Coast operations," Venter spokeswoman Heather Kowalski tells Xconomy's Bruce Bigelow. "To your question regarding the West Coast, we...

Montgomery County pushes $10B biotech ‘science city’

A group of officials from Johns Hopkins University is joining forces with a group of biotech business leaders in the state to move ahead today with plans to build a $10 billion, 17.5 million-square-feet R&D "science city" in Maryland's Montgomery County. The county council is expected to endorse the ambitious project, which would go a long way toward making the county a biotech hub that could rival the likes of Palo Alto. County Executive Isiah Leggett, meanwhile, is in...