Almost $40 million in federal research grants have cleared the way for the Texas A&M University System and a private company to begin construction on a vaccine manufacturing facility that local leaders say will bring more than 100 high-paying jobs to Brazos County and spark a biomedical boom in the region.
The money will fund Project Greenvax, an effort to develop manufacturing methods to use proteins from tobacco plants to produce massive amounts of vaccines in a short period of time. A&M announced the grants from the U.S. Department of Defense on Wednesday.
The goal, officials involved in the project said, is to produce a large supply of swine flu vaccines within 12 months to prove that their method is viable. And, in the end, they hope to be able to manufacture as many as 100 million vaccines in a month, which would allow the country to respond quickly to outbreaks of disease and other public health emergencies.
That work will be done in a 145,000-square-foot facility built by G-Con, LLC, a young biomedical company with close ties to A&M. Officials said that at least 100 new employees will be hired to work at the facility by 2013 and the company will have a payroll of at least $6 million.
"These are very high-paying jobs," said David Haselwood, head of business operations for G-Con. "We are going to be searching thro-ughout the state of Texas to identify the best and brightest talent for the manufacturing space. If they are here in Bryan-College Station, that is fantastic. We have a keen interest in supporting Texas and hiring students [from A&M]."
Very little information is available about G-Con. It was officially formed in 2009, Haselwood said, and worked with A&M to build the National Center for Thera-peutic Manufacturing . It has offices in Dallas and College Station.
Haselwood declined to say how many employees currently work for the company.
"As a private company, we haven't really disclosed a tremendous amount of information," Haselwood said.
G-Con's president is Barry Holtz, who is listed as a principal consultant and collaborator of Holtz Biopharma Consulting and has been developing biomedical products for 30 years.
"Barry Holtz is really one of the fathers of the field of plant-based vaccines and really has more experience than anyone in the world," said Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for research at the A&M System.
That expertise of Holtz and G-Con is the reason for A&M collaborating with the new company, Giroir said.
The A&M System and the state government have recen-tly made a priority out of developing a biomedical industry in Texas to compete with those on the East and West coasts. Using millions of dollars in funds directed from the governor's office, A&M has teamed up with private companies, including G-Con, to build research buildings and institutes to work toward that goal.
The projects make up the Institute for Innovative Therapeutics, which is near where G-Con will build its facility. A&M and local government leaders hope to use incentives to attract other biomedical companies to the Bryan-College Station area along the so-called bio-corridor.
"I would say that A&M has been very forward-thinking with how they look to interact with businesses, and that will be a tremendous asset to us," Haselwood said. "They see the vision for the biotech business corridor that has both elements of the academic side, which would be the research and teaching, interacting with the businesses."
Some members of the A&M faculty have been critical of such goals, saying that they go against the university's mission and were forced upon A&M's main campus without buy-in from the faculty and some administrators.
It clearly does have buy-in from local government leaders, however. The city of Bryan agreed to a land swap with A&M so that G-Con could have about 21 acres to build its facility. Bryan is also constructing a road to the facility and considering tax abatements for the company.
In return, G-Con has assured the city that it will construct a building apprai-sed at at least $30 million -- bringing significant tax revenue.
College Station is also considering taking steps to attract companies to build in its city limits.
"We believe this will be the first of many to come and take advantage of the research [going on around A&M]," said Bryan City Manager David Watkins. "There's a bunch of companies looking around because they want to be near this technology."
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