UMBC center adds another biotech

July 25, 2005
By JOE BACCHUS,
Daily Record Business Writer

The techcenter@UMBC Incubator Program continues to expand its stable of biotechnology start-ups with its new tenant, Lentigen Corp.

Lentigen is a gene delivery and expression company that takes genetic material from researchers and places it in vectors — or transport systems — so that the new genes can be introduced into existing cells. That new genetic information is then transported on to replicated cells.

Boro Dropulic, Lentigen's chief executive officer, said gene therapy allows doctors and scientists a new method with which to approach genetic disorders.

“We aim to cure diseases by tackling the causes of the diseases — genes — rather than attacking the symptoms” with conventional drugs, he said.

For example, sickle cell anemia is caused by malformed red blood cells that cannot properly transport oxygen throughout the body. By adding corrected genetic material to red cell-producing bone marrow, gene therapy has the potential to actually alter the shape of future blood cells and cure the disease.

Dropulic said the best way to picture the process is to imagine the transport vector to be a ball, and the new genetic material as a string deep within the ball. The ball attaches itself to the targeted cell and the new genetic material integrates itself into the cell's existing chromosomes. From then on, any replicated cells will have the traits of that new genetic material.

The company said the Lentiviral vectors, from which it takes its name, have proven themselves to be some of the most efficient and stable transport methods.

Lentigen was founded in late 2004 and moved into the incubator last month. Dropulic said the company — which has four employees and one intern — has already grown to the point where it needs three laboratories in addition to its office space. Lentigen currently expects to stay in the incubator for one to two years.

Dropulic said Lentigen joined the incubator only after looking around to see what other facilities might have to offer. In the end, he said, the support offered by the incubator, as well as the chance to be with similar fledgling biotechnology companies, made the decision easy.

“With more than 10 techcenter@UMBC life science companies, Lentigen will have excellent access to colleagues with similar start-up experiences,” David Fink, the incubator's entrepreneur in residence, said in a statement.

Current biotechnology companies in the incubator include Profectus Biosciences Inc., Fluorometrix and Amulet Pharmaceuticals.

Dropulic said another of the incubator's draws was its physical resources. For instance, the modular office space included centrifuges and other necessary and expensive equipment — even furniture in many of the offices. Free desks and chairs might not seem like much of a draw to established companies, but he said for new business endeavors they can make all the difference.

“When you're a startup and you want you spend your startup funds on things that affect the bottom line,” Dropulic said, the little things can add up to quite a lot.