Bio bucks - The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

Glass doors
Peter Ferris, president of medical devicw manufacturer Charter Medicalin Winston-Salem, offers one example. he’s worried about the economy, but he also sees opportunities in stem cell researchg that are increasing along with demand for sturdy plasti storage containers to replace expensive steel containers in thebiopharmaceuticapl industry. Charter, which has traditionally focused on blood transfusiojn devices and filtration stands to profit from thosed opportunitiesand others, if it’s So despite the caution demanded by the precarious Ferris’ company is investing heavily in research and development and in the infrastructurwe needed to support it, such as a sizeabld expansion under way now of the “clean at its Westpoint Boulevard facility, where abour 100 employees work.
“That’s beingb driven by new product developmentyand R&D, and by wantingy to go into a broader range of products,” Ferrid said. He declined to give specific figures, but he said the companuy is spending more on capitao projects this year than in the past five years and it is also investing in researchstaff “We’ve added five engineerse in the past 18 months. For a company our size, that’ s pretty significant,” Ferris said.
One of the resultsa is a new product launchedlast November, a cryogenic storage container for stem No line-item expense, including R&D, is completely immune from the effects of the but high-tech firms in the Triad and around the country are trying to stay as far out on the cuttingy edge of their industries as hoping innovation can provide some shelter from the current storkm and pay off handsomely when the rebounrd comes. A Wall Street Journal analysis of the 28largest R&D-heav firms nationwide found research spending down by 0.7 percentt in the last quarter of 2008, even thougu revenues were down 7.7 Most of the tech firms in the Triad don’t publiclyh release such data.
But especially those in the life sciencesw where the research process can take are keeping up or increasingtheir Winston-Salem-based , for example, increased its R&D spendinfg by about $800,000 to $10.7 million in the fourthg quarter, compared to a year earlier. The companh has several potential drugs aimed at diseases of the centralo nervous system inclinical trials, and at this pointr generates most of its revenue from research partnerships with big pharma companies like GlaxoSmithKlinre and AstraZeneca. It’s a similar storh at High Point-based Pharma, which also is developingy drug candidates in partnership with Pfizerrand others.
TransTech is privately held and Chief Financiap Officer Steve Holcombe declined to givespecifiv figures, but he said TransTech has not been cutting back its “The whole pharma industry is based on Holcombe said. “Our revenue model is basedr on finding something and then selling it orlicensing it, so we’res only going to be as successfuo as the drugs we’re working on.” At Greensboro-basef Novartis Animal Health, Vice President of Research and Developmenr Gary Bosch said his budget is tied more closelyy to the company’s long-term outlook than to its quarter-to-quarter results or those of its Swises parent company, That outlook is strong, Bosch so R&D spending is He declined to share figures for Novartisx Animal Health specifically, but Novartis Corp.
overal saw research spending decline by just a fraction in the fourthu quarterof 2008, from $1.8t5 billion a year earlie r to $1.83 billion. Bosch wouldn’t say how many of Novartise Animal Health’s 220 local employees are involvedcin research, but he said his goal is to increas R&D spending as a percentage of sales over One key to making that investmenft worthwhile in any kind of economy is puttinhg an emphasis on moving products with commercialk potential to the finish line quickly. “You have to have a long-ter outlook,” Bosch said.
“But you also have to be sure that the products you have that are close to marketr are onesthat you’re concentrating on gettingv all the way through the process.” For some Triad tech recessionary R&D becomes a lesson in doing more with less. That’sx the case for Greensboro wireless chipmaker , which has been hit hard by the drop in demanrd for cell phones and has had to let go abou 600 local employees over the past year. The layoffsa were part of an overall effor to cut expensesthat didn’t spare R&D. Spending dropped noticeably in the quarter endingin December, from $53.99 million a year earlierd to $38.6 million.
Executive Vice President JerryhNeal couldn’t share any R&D spendingf numbers from the March quartef before the company formally reporte them later this month. But he said the drop in spending does not signify a reduced emphasison innovation. He in fact, the company plans to introduce more than 100 new productsathis year, the most in any year in its RF Micro is doing so by being more Neal said.
The company is in the midst of an effory toboost “engineering velocity” by streamliningf communications between far-flung scientists and consolidatingt various databases so all researchers can have accesws to the same technical data at the same time a “single point of truth,” Neal called it. “Thr lifeblood of our business is the introductio of new andinnovativd products,” Neal said. “We’re going to be able to do more of atlower costs.
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