SC Biotech Scientists Meeting in Warsaw
September 25, 2013
CHARLESTON, SC – September 25, 2013 – At the invitation of the Republic of Poland’s Ministry of Economy, three biotech scientists are representing the medical biotech industry in South Carolina at a trade conference in Warsaw, Poland.
Dr. Dev Arya, President of NUBAD, LLC, based in Greenville, is representing the Upstate. His company, NUBAD, LLC, is a drug discovery company devoted to identifying therapeutic agents that link RNA and DNA structures identified as targets in human disease.
Representing the Columbia Region is Dr. Igor Roninson, President of Senex Biotechnology, Inc. Senex is a cancer drug discovery and development company which relocated from New York to South Carolina in 2011 to develop a pipeline of preclinical small-molecule drug candidates, acting on novel proprietary molecular targets.
Dr. Brad Goodwin, President of CharlestonPharma, is representing the Lowcountry. His company focuses on developing innovative therapeutic antibodies and related diagnostic tests for cancer patients.
The Warsaw conference brings together scientists from South Carolina and Poland to learn about each other’s research, how patents are being commercialized, and how the companies can work together across the Atlantic Ocean.
“While these companies are visiting Poland, they will be telling Polish scientists about the opportunities available in South Carolina, through SCRA, SC Launch, USC, MUSC, Clemson, the Upstate South Carolina Alliance, the Central South Carolina Alliance, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, and the SC Department of Commerce,” says Dr. Emerson Smith, a medical sociologist and president of Metromark Research.
Metromark, in addition to working with hospitals and physicians to provide quality care, positive outcomes, and market analysis, brings together biotech companies in the US to collaborate with companies in Europe.
Medical biotech companies are discovering drugs and therapies to treat cancer, heart disease, stroke, and other health problems. Once these drugs are tested in clinical trials and approved by the Food and Drug Administration, patients in Greenville, Greenwood, Columbia, Charleston, Warsaw and elsewhere in the world can benefit from the discoveries made by research teams at these three South Carolina biotech companies and at other biotech companies based in SC.
Arya, Roninson and Goodwin will be visiting the labs of biotech companies in the City of Lodz as well as Warsaw, two of the largest municipalities in Poland, explaining their products and services, and meeting individually with Polish companies to discuss possible partnerships.
“South Carolina has, historically, attracted consumer goods manufacturers from Europe, including BMW from Germany and Michelin from France. Europeans have always found South Carolina a good place to locate their companies. But now, instead of focusing only on large consumer goods manufacturers that produce cars and tires that we can touch, we’re also focusing on small biotech companies that produce molecules that can be seen only through electron microscopes,” Smith added. “It is a different scale of manufacturing, but one that holds a great deal of potential in terms of expanding our knowledge economy in South Carolina to create high paying jobs and to attract US and European investors.”
“Our children know the words ‘nuts’, ‘bolts’, ‘paint’ and ‘plastic’. We need to make sure they are just as comfortable with words like ‘molecules’, ‘antibodies’, and even ‘desoxyribonucleic acid’ or, at least, its acronym, DNA’, Smith concluded.”
