Biotage Closes VA Factory, Transfers Production

By The Daily Progress Staff
Published: January 23, 2009

A Sweden-based firm that makes products for the pharmaceutical industry will move its Albemarle County production line to Cardiff, Wales, taking 50 local jobs with it.

Biotage announced Thursday that it would start transferring its production overseas in stages. The move is slated to be finished by the fourth quarter.

The company’s president and chief executive officer, Torben Jörgensen, said in a news release that the move would streamline production, letting the company “achieve considerable efficiency gains and reduce susceptibility to changes in demand.”

The Cardiff factory produces most of Biotage’s products.

The local Biotage facility, in the University of Virginia’s North Fork Research Park, manufactures filters used to purify drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. About six years ago, the company was based in Charlottesville and about 10 percent of Biotage’s employees were UVa graduates.

Michael E. Harvey, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development, said the departure came as no surprise.

“In downturns, the first thing to really start feeling the effects of it is manufacturing,” Harvey said. “Nobody is immune from what is going on right now.”

Harvey is a proponent of bringing more technology jobs to the Charlottesville area, although he said that any technology company that has a manufacturing component will be affected when the economy falters.

Biotage has 300 employees worldwide.

From the Charlottesville Daily Progress

First UVa-Tech Community Lunch a Success

 
Dr. Barry L. Johnson, founder of Privaris, a Charlottesville biometric security company, was the featured speaker at the first “Charlottesville Bio and Technology Luncheon,” held Thursday, April 17, in the Harrison Institute Auditorium at the University of Virginia.

This event was the first collaborative effort of The University of Virginia, the Virginia Biotechnology Association (VaBIO) and Charlottesville Business Innovation Council (CBIC). The law firm LeClair Ryan, was the premier sponsor of the event. Additional support was kindly provided by Latimer, Mayberry and Mathews IP Law.

Approximately 50 attendees from industry and academia heard how Dr. Johnson took Privaris from start-up to its current status. Dr. Johnson joined the U.Va. faculty in 1984 and co-founded Privaris in 1998. Privaris has now successfully raised two venture rounds of $15.6 million and $3.3 million as well as an angel round of approximately $8 million. Dr. Johnson still serves on the Privaris executive team and board, but is now Senior Associate Dean for Research and Professor in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia.

Also speaking at the event were Mike Drzal of LeClair Ryan, David Chen of UVa's Coulter Translational Research Program, Tracey Linkous of Diffusion Pharmaceuticals (and representing CBIC) and VaBIO Executive Director Mark Herzog. Sharon Krueger of UVa and Dawn Freeman of VaBIO provided the administrative support.

For more information about the joint initiative and the next meeting of the group, please contact VaBIO at 804-643-6360.