The University's goal of developing its own small-scale Silicon Valley will become closer to a reality this December when construction of the Emergency Technology Center at the Research Park at North Fork is complete.
The center will provide new opportunities for interaction between University faculty members and the private business sector. University scientists and researchers began planning the center two years ago, and construction started in February at North Fork, located eight miles north of Grounds.
Research park officials expect three biotech firms to move in this December. Biotage Inc. purchased 7.1 acres from the University in September for $750,000. MDS Proteomics and Spinner Technologies will be the other two new tenants.
"This clustering of companies is like a biotechnological Napa Valley," said Tim R. Rose, president of the University of Virginia Foundation, a company that helps manage much of the University's real estate holdings. "This is the first instance of significant laboratory space in our community. Also, it will better enable the transfer of technology out of the classroom and into the corporate world."
Founded in Charlottesville in 1989, Biotage Inc. is a subsidiary of Dyax Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Mass. Biotage makes systems and consumable products to purify new medicines and drugs.
David B. Patteson, President and CEO of Biotage, says he looks forward to the company being able to consolidate its three Charlottesville locations into the one at North Fork.
"This will be a good labor pool," Patteson said. "We will continue to interact with the University and may work with the Commerce School."
MDS Proteomics, a subsidiary of MDS Inc., Canada's largest health and life sciences company, signed a lease for 15,000 square feet.
Spinner Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of the U.Va. Patent Foundation, will lease 1,800 square feet of the center.
It will then sub-lease its space to small technology startups.
The University of Virginia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates the University's two research parks in Albemarle County. One is the 54-acre Fontaine Research Park located southwest of Grounds, and the second is North Fork, the larger 562-acre park located eight miles north of Charlottesville and adjacent to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport. Both were opened in 1994.
According to Rose, 20 percent of Virginia's biotech industries are in Charlottesville. "With this new center, the various companies will feed off each other and help each other grow," he said.
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