Biotech shines as a bright spot for Conn.
Connecticut has long figured as a national leader in the biotech industry. It has only bolstered that standing in the past few months.
A number of companies based in the state have emerged as hubs of research and development for COVID-19 treatment and testing, while work on drugs for other conditions continues to advance. The sector has not evaded the pandemic’s disruption, but recent activity suggests it is resilient enough to keep growing.
“For the state’s economy, it’s really great,” said Paul Pescatello, executive director and senior counsel for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association’s Connecticut Bioscience Growth Council. “From people who do the clinical work and clean the labs and do all the regulatory record keeping, as well as the PhD scientists — it just plays to our strengths, with a high-knowledge workforce.”
Onward with R&D
Connecticut’s history of innovation in the industry facilitated its pivot to coronavirus-focused initiatives.
The state ranked fourth in the nation at the end of 2018 for bioscience patents per 1,000 people, according to the state-chartered venture capital organization Connecticut Innovations.
Among new projects, New Haven-based Biohaven Pharmaceuticals has gained U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval for its under-development nasal spray for migraines, which is now toalso be studied as a treatment for COVID-19.
At the same time, French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi — whose Protein Sciences subsidiary operates a laboratory and other functions in Meriden — is developing a vaccine candidate.
To support its work, Protein Sciences expanded a partnership with the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority that has focused since 2004 on pandemic-influenza preparedness.
“This technology will be leveraged to produce a vaccine in the U.S., with an exact genetic match to proteins of the virus,” BARDA officials said in a blog post.
On the testing front, Stamfordheadquartered genomic-testing firm Sema4 announced last month that it would repurpose its lab in Branford so it could run several thousand COVID-19 tests each week.
It is also working on the development of serum-based antibody tests, which could help health care providers understand the extent of infections and identify people who have previously been exposed to the virus and developed immunity.
Development of non-coronavirus medicines is also progressing. Stamford-based Cara Therapeutics aims to submit its first new drug application to the FDA in the second half of this year, for an injection to treat the chronic kidney disease-related itch condition pruritus in patients undergoing dialysis. It recently completed a phase-three trial for the drug, called Korsuva.
“We’re really pleased to have gotten to the NDA stage,” said Derek Chalmers, Cara’s CEO and president. “We’re pleased for the patients and that the science has won out in the end. This is going to be a very effective drug for these patients.”
Those initiatives are moving ahead despite a widespread slowdown in clinical trials.
“Obviously people who don’t have to be at a medical center have decided to stay away, and that has hampered some of those trials,” said Dan Wagner, managing director of investments for Connecticut Innovations, whose portfolio includes Biohaven, Cara and Sema4. “I think that will ramp back up in the second half of the year, whether it’s through telemedicine and remote clinical trials or if we come up with better ways to isolate trial patients from people who may have been infected with the coronavirus.”
Nine-figure fundraising rounds in the past couple of years have reinforced those firms’ ability to forge ahead with new initiatives during the pandemic.
Last year, Biohaven and Cara held public offerings of $300 million and $146 million, respectively. Also in 2019, Sema4, which is privately held, raised about $125 million from investors including Connecticut Innovations, Greenwich-based investment firm Oak HC/FT, and private-equity giant The Blackstone Group.
Earlier this month, another biotech company in the Connecticut Innovations portfolio, New Haven-based RallyBio, completed a $145 million financing round. Its leading program is an underdevelopment treatment to prevent a potentially life-threatening rare disease that affects fetuses and newborns.
“The dollars are still moving,” Wagner said. “New deals and new collaborations and partnerships are slower to develop as people have been sequestered and have been trying to figure out this new world. But I have seen over the last week an influx of new opportunities. I think deals will continue to move forward on the financing side.”
Expanding
The Connecticut Department of Labor’s monthly job-tracking statistics do not include a designated category for bioscience. But the industry likely dropped jobs — at least temporarily — as employment shrunk in every sector as the state suffered a recordbreaking loss of approximately 266,000 positions in April.
Still, expansion plans proceeding at several firms indicate biotech did not suffer nearly as much as the hardest-hit industries such as hospitality and retail.
Last year, bioscience employed roughly 23,000 people across about 1,000 companies in the state, with an average salary of about $121,000, according to the Department of Labor.
Despite the pandemic’s disruption, firms such as Cara and Sema4 are pushing ahead with plans to grow.
Cara plans to increase its contingent of approximately 70 Stamford-based employees later this year. Its main offices are based at 107 Elm St., in the city’s downtown.
Sema4 still intends to open this year an approximately 70,000 square-foot lab in Stamford’s Waterside section. Today, it employs about 215 at its main offices at 333 Ludlow St., in the city’s South End, and about 75 at the Branford lab.
The new Stamford facility would house operations, including the antibody research, that are now based within the Mount Sinai Health System in Manhattan. Sema4 was spun off from Mount Sinai in 2017.
“We need to do everything we can to retain this talented workforce and continue to build our bioscience pipeline to support the jobs needed in this industry over the next decade,” said state Rep. Caroline Simmons, D-Stamford, co-chairwoman of the state Legislature’s Commerce Committee. “Investing in our bioscience infrastructure, ensuring we have adequate lab space, building our bioscience workforce pipeline and helping bioscience startups access capital are key ways we can expand Connecticut’s bioscience sector.”