Encor
Biotechnologies is now the latest biotech company to graduate from the
University of Florida's Sid Martin Biotechnology Development Incubator
in Alachua.
Founded in 1999 by Gerry Shaw, a professor of
neuroscience at UF, the company develops and manufactures antibodies
that are used for biotechnology research around the world.
Shaw, 53, credits the incubator with getting his company off the ground.
"It helped enormously. If you start a company, you have to put it
somewhere and [there's] an enormous cost for equipment, so it makes a
lot of sense to go into a building that's [already] set up for a
biotech company," Shaw said of the resources that the incubator was
able to provide. "I was in their incubator for four years almost, and
in that time, we built up some sales, expertise and bought some of our
own equipment."
According to Patti Breedlove, assistant director of the incubator, Encor's success is no surprise.
In fact, the company is "fortunate in a couple of ways, in that it has
a product that does not require FDA approval - it's not going into
patients, not going into humans. It's for research studies," Breedlove
said.
Essentially, while the majority of biotechnology
companies are working on products that involve humans, Encor's efforts
are focused primarily on developing new antibodies for other
researchers to utilize.
"The major biotechnology companies make
things that take many years to get into the marketplace and cost many
millions of dollars," Breedlove said. "This is a different kind of
product and much easier and faster [to produce]."
The
incubator, which currently is working with 11 companies, provides
facilities, shared equipment and business resources for its tenants.
And now that Encor has moved out of its first home and into its own
facility on SW 41st Boulevard in Gainesville, its founder sees a bright
future for the three-person company. "We're not a big company but we're
quite profitable," he said.
"We're looking at hiring some new
people and doing some things more independently," Shaw said. "We're not
a big company but we're quite profitable."
