Innovation is bountiful in Delaware, a state rich in bioscience research companies that are balancing on the cutting edge of new technology.
The bioscience field, which includes natural sciences that deal with living organisms, employs about 20,000 Delawareans and contributed $1.7 billion to the state’s economy last year, according to the Delaware Economic Development Office.
The Delaware BioScience Association, founded two years ago, has grown to include 73 members representing a wide variety of biotech firms.
The networking opportunities afforded by the association have been beneficial to the state’s bioscience industry, which is strong and growing, said Jennifer Kmiec, chairwoman of the association.
The state’s high concentration of bioscience companies is partly a result of DuPont’s legacy, she said. DuPont has traditionally encouraged spin-off scientists who start their own research companies. In addition, when DuPont’s pharmaceuticals department closed, it saturated the labor market with well-trained researchers, Kmiec said.
It was a former DuPont scientist who founded the Newark-based biotech company Analtech in 1961, said Ken Grant, Analtech’s sales and marketing director.
The company is the only U.S. producer of thin layer chromatography plates, glass plates used to separate and analyze components of a liquid, and sells about a million plates worldwide each year, said General Manager Steven C. Miles.
The technology has hundreds of applications, including pregnancy tests, crime scene investigations and disease research, Grant said, and it is exciting to be involved in a fast-moving field like bioscience.
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“We may not cure cancer, but we’ll provide the tools for the person who does,” he said.
Delaware is the perfect place to produce those tools because of its small size, which allows easy access to politicians and peers that provide funding and input to help further research, Grant said.
The University of Delaware is also a beacon of scientific research that boosts biotech companies, said Gary Jackoway, vice president of research and development at MIDI, Inc., in Newark.
The company was founded by a University of Delaware professor in 1985 and uses gas chromatographs, hi-tech pieces of scientific equipment, to identify bacteria, he said.
The technology is far-reaching, used in everything from yogurt production to the identification of the strain of anthrax that killed a 94-year-old Connecticut woman in 2001, he said. But pharmaceutical companies are the biggest consumers of MIDI’s services, so Delaware’s proximity to many pharmaceutical firms makes it the best place for business.
“Biotech is coming of age,” he said. “We are well positioned in Delaware to be a big part of that.”
Big things are happening at small biotech firms throughout the state, like the 50-employee division of ThermoFisher Scientific that produces NanoDrop equipment in Brandywine Hundred.
NanoDrop products, analytical machines about the size of a Kleenex box, are used to detect nucleic acids and proteins, said Cathy Williams, marketing director of NanoDrop products.
The company has sold more than 18,000 machines since it was founded in 2001, Williams said, and it has capitalized on the close customer relationships that can be built at a small company.
Delaware’s small size makes it a perfect environment for a small firm, she said, and the Delaware Bioscience Association brings together large and small companies to share ideas and learn about valuable state programs.
The association’s focus on knowledge sharing helps fuel research at small biotech companies, which can create big results, she said.
“We provide an enabling technology for research that is truly going to benefit mankind,” Williams said.
Watch a video of Analtech's products featured on the CBS crime drama "CSI."
Watch a video of an Analtech cyclograph in motion.
See NanoDrop Products in action.
