Virginia Bioscience Podcast: Dr. Charles Hamner

This edition of the Virginia Bioscience Podcast features Dr. Charles E. Hamner, DVM and PhD, the former president and CEO of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. When Hamner joined the Center in February 1988, the state had a fledgling biotechnology industry. Today, North Carolina is among the nation’s top five biotechnology states with several hundred thriving bioscience, contract research, device, and other supporting companies throughout the state.

Under his leadership, the Center strengthened the state’s biotechnology infrastructure by investing more than $50 million in the state’s universities, seed-funding 62 startup companies, creating a $26 million venture capital fund for new companies, building a permanent headquarters building and conference facility, providing biotechnology workshops for more than 1,000 high school teachers, and helping recruit more than a dozen biotechnology companies to North Carolina.

Dr. Hamner’s presentation, “Key Factors of Attracting the Biotechnology Industry to a State,” was given on December 14, 2006 at the Virginia Biotechnology Association’s conference on economic development strategies for the bioscience industry. The host is Mark Herzog, executive director of the Virginia Biotechnology Association.