Tag: bioscience

Center to Aid Bioscience Entrepreneurs

The Georgia Bioscience Commercialization Center, a start-up organization intended to give bioscience entrepreneurs a leg up in business, officially launched its efforts Monday afternoon.

Through a faculty of 23 bioscience business leaders, the nonprofit GBCC will offer free advice to help get new bioscience creations get to market. The experienced executives will offer assistance with things such as reviewing and refining start-up concepts; drafting solid business plans; identifying investors; finding incubator space; and navigating the drug and device regulatory pathways.The GBCC will also provide referrals to providers of services from accounting to sales. For entrepreneurs getting started, all of this is free. Companies listed in the GBCC’s providers directory pay a fee of $950 per year.

One of the local faculty members is Harold Shlevin, Ph.D., a 30-year biosciences-industry executive and researcher, who works at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) as manager of ATDC-Biosciences. At ATDC, he serves as a startup catalyst advising new bioscience companies within the ATDC and evaluates and guides new and emerging bioscience enterprises that are based on Georgia Tech research innovations as well as others across Georgia.
To read more about the new Georgia Bioscience Commercialization Center, click here.
To read more about Harold Shlevin, click here.

Life Science Jobs Coming to Thomaston

It’s not as sexy, say, as stem-cell research or nano-technology, but Georgia added an animal products factory Wednesday to its growing life-science portfolio.  Smyrna-based Animal Health & Sciences Inc. will invest $9.1 million and hire 100 people in Thomaston, about an hour south of Atlanta. They’ll make chemicals for shampoos, powders and aerosols to keep pests off dogs, cats and horses.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much of an animal health presence we have here in Georgia,” said Charles Craig, president of Georgia Bio, a nonprofit that promotes the bio-tech industry. The announcement “is just another example of Georgia’s attractiveness as a destination for bio-science industry development.”

The state’s life-science industry – bio-engineered medicines, foods, fuels and agricultural products — produces an annual economic impact of $16 billion, according to the Selig Center at the University of Georgia. More than 60,000 people, either directly or indirectly, work in the industry.

The University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Emory and other universities, as well as the Centers for Disease Control, perform ground-breaking bio-tech research. The U.S. Department of Agriculture runs a research center in Athens.

To read the entire article, click here.