Colleges, Life Sciences Firms: Partners For Progress
PHOTO/emily micucci
Daniel Mardirosian of WPI's Biomanufacturing Education and Training Center explains the operations of some biomanufacturing equipment that companies use to train new employees.
On-the-job mistakes always impact the bottom line, but the degree of expense varies widely from industry to industry.
In the life sciences field, the stakes are particularly high. One wrong move by a rookie employee could derail months of work, and easily end up costing $500,000 or more.
"From a financial standpoint, mistakes in our industry are very costly," said Ed Smith, associate director of upstream biologics manufacturing at Bristol-Myers Squibb's Devens facility, where the cancer drug, Orencia, is produced.
The best way to avoid costly errors is to ensure that the people making drugs are well-trained on the equipment and procedures, Smith said. To that end, a partnership between Bristol-Myers and Worcester Polytechnic Institute since 2006 has been instrumental.
Over the last seven years, Smith and WPI officials have worked together to design biotechnology manufacturing training programs aimed at preparing workers for jobs at area life sciences companies like Bristol-Myers.
The first training was tailored for displaced workers from Polaroid Corp., which laid off 150 workers when it shuttered plants in Norwood and Waltham in 2008. But it expanded since to create custom trainings for particular companies, as well as general biotech manufacturing skills trainings, now housed at WPI's new Biomanufacturing Education and Training Center (BETC) at Gateway Park.
"Without programs like the ones that WPI provides, it's really hard to get a steady pipeline of entry-level personnel to come in and do what we do," Smith said.
Training programs are key, but they're only one piece of what WPI and other area colleges offer to aid the development of the region's life sciences industry.
WPI has a high-profile role in partnering with area life sciences companies, assisting with everything from research and development, to equipment rentals, and even launching joint business ventures.
Stephen Flavin, vice president and dean for academic and corporate development at WPI, describes his department as one that feels more like a business and less like a higher education department.
The Academic and Corporate Development department is in charge of forging relationships with area businesses from all industries, helping companies navigate higher education bureaucracy to understand how WPI can assist them with business goals.
At a given time, the department is running between 30 and 50 business partnerships with the private sector, and about a dozen of those are with life sciences firms, including global pharmaceutical firm Abbvie, Worcester- based contract life science research firm Averica Discovery Services, and Massachusetts drug companies Genzyme and Biogen Idec.
Most look to WPI for training services, but Flavin said renting equipment is also important, particularly to smaller firms like Averica, which is renting pricey equipment owned by WPI on a fee-for-service basis, according to Flavin. WPI also provides students to perform research functions for companies, giving students a chance to earn course credit in return for their knowledge and work.
For WPI, the partnerships are revenue generators; the BETC is expected to generate $500,000 and revenue must increase four times in order for the center to be solvent, according to Flavin. But he said partnering with business has been part of the school's mission since its founding in 1865.
"It's not just about making money," Flavin said. "We're helping the industry and we're helping the economy."
Mixing Business With Academia
Business partnerships also offer professors an opportunity to try their hands at business, something many academics never have the chance to pursue. Flavin said WPI faculty are encouraged to get involved with such ventures, and those that do are rewarded at annual review time.
One such professor, Glenn Gaudette, co-founded and launched a biofabrication company, VitaThreads LLC, with fellow WPI professor George Pins in 2012. They partnered with private-sector partners, and plan to commercialize a biologically-based microthread that can deliver stem cells to regenerate tissue in people with sports injuries and heart problems.
VitaThreads is just beginning pre-clinical animal trials and the company plans to begin clinical trials needed for Federal Drug Administration approval for the product.
Gaudette, who now works as an advisor to VitaThreads, said launching a business has made him a better professor. "For me it's fantastic, because I can bring a lot of the things I'm learning from the company back into the classroom," Gaudette said.
Life Science Alliances Beyond WPI
Examples of alliances between life sciences industry and higher education can also be found beyond WPI. Clark University, for example, has been host to Nuclea Biotechnologies Inc.'s Worcester operations in recent years. The Pittsfield-based company expanded a research partnership with Clark in 2011 to establish the Proteomic and Metabolomic Center on campus, which provides bioinformatics resources to aid research, diagnostics, and drug development activities, according to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
When the center was launched, Patrick J. Muraca, a Clark graduate and CEO of Nuclea, said the research done there would lead to new biomarkers that would help doctors identify deadly cancers in hard-to-diagnose patients and prescribe the appropriate treatments.
And like WPI, Mount Wachusett Community College has partnered with Bristol-Myers Squibb on workforce training efforts, designing curriculum covering biotech basics students need in order to work for Bristol-Myers. A $1.6 billion grant from the U.S. Department of Labor was awarded in 2008 to help the college outfit its labs in Devens with necessary training equipment.
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