Stem cell engineering company Vita Therapeutics has moved its offices across town to the University of Maryland BioPark.
The 10,000-square-foot space will allow the company to bring its entire team into a single building. Previously, the company had six private locations across three different buildings, including at the Johns Hopkins University FastForward incubator. Vita Therapeutics' technology is based on research originally done at Hopkins, with the company spinning off from the university in 2019.
"We were looking for a space that could put the entire team under one roof," CEO Douglas Falk said.
The building gives the company access to facilities it would not have at a regular office building, such as access to medical and academic journals, which would normally have a cost, Falk said. The company is also able to order specific scientific materials through the University of Maryland for a discount.
The new location at 801 W. Baltimore St. is a more convenient commute for the company's over 25 employees, many of whom live in Montgomery County.
The company is coming off raising a $32 million series A funding round in 2021. Vita's muscular dystrophy product, VTA-100, repairs and regenerates muscles for patients with healthy limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, a group of disorders that impacts the shoulders, upper arms, pelvic area and thighs. Another product, VTA-300, engineers a patient's cells to fight against tumors.
"Our hope is that this immunotherapy platform is something that we can bring to the clinic to treat multiple different solid tumors," Falk said.
The company's technology is currently in the preclinical stage and Falk plans to file for an Investigational New Drug application from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval late next year, which would allow the company to test the drugs on human patients.
The 14-acre BioPark, or biomedical research park, sits across Martin Luther King Boulevard from the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus on downtown's west side. It is home to nearly 40 companies, including Catalent Inc., which acquired Paragon BioServices for $1.2 billion in 2019, BD and Illumina.
"We aim to attract the most innovative scientific companies with a mission of making a difference in human health. In return, we offer opportunities for our tenants to access the University's resources, medical facilities, and leading academic researchers," James Hughes, president of the UM BioPark said in a statement.
Matt Hooke covers technology, health care and innovation for the Baltimore Business Journal and Maryland Inno. He can be reached at mhooke@bizjournals.com or 410-454-0504.
