Biochemist Timothy Wilson and his wife, a molecular biologist, moved to Central Ohio almost three years ago from North Dakota for jobs at Grove City-based Forge Biologics Inc., a recently acquired developer and manufacturer of cell and gene therapies.
Eight months ago, Wilson moved to AmplifyBio LLC to lead quality control in bioanalytics at the lab and manufacturing facility the Battelle spinoff was building in New Albany, while his wife remains at Forge, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Wilson grew up mostly in southern California, he said, and did a fellowship with the National Institutes of Health before going to a North Dakota biotech firm.
As a couple, the Ph.D. researchers could have looked for jobs in Boston or California, but the cost of living was prohibitive, Wilson said while leading a tour of AmplifyBio's New Albany lab, which has opened its first phase.
"The opportunity is high (on the coasts), but it's not necessarily sustainable," Wilson said. "To have a fulfilling career, to be able to help people – really save lives and cure diseases – and do it in an area where there's quality of life, really is a great opportunity for me.
"I'm enamored, to be honest."
The growing biotech cluster in Central Ohio, including many companies like Forge and AmplifyBio specializing in regenerative medicine, makes it easier to recruit from the relatively small number of doctoral-level scientists with expertise in things like growing and characterizing trillions of cells, AmplifyBio CEO J. Kelly Ganjei said. They have the security of finding other jobs in the region without uprooting their families.
"It is becoming more and more every day a tech ecosystem that is driving companies to Columbus," Ganjei said, standing with Battelle CEO Lou Von Thaer, fellow researchers and guests in an open house Thursday at the New Albany facility, called the Amplify Manufacturing Enablement Center.
Guests included Wade Macedone, CEO of Columbus-based Andelyn Biosciences Inc., a Children's spinoff that manufactures gene and cell therapies. (The two companies are part of a joint federal contract on neurological research.)
With the center's opening, the startup has achieved the vision of end-to-end biopharmaceutical development that Battelle first pitched to Ganjei when recruiting him to lead the contract research organization, he said. The company helps clients develop cell and gene therapies, mRNA vaccines, or other bio-based medicine from the earliest stages up to the point of clinical trials.
"We're ecstatic," he said. "This is just the beginning."
"We've got big plans," Von Thaer added.
Check the slideshow for a sneak peak of the massive facility, which has plenty of room inside to grow:
AmplifyBio New Albany
AmplifyBio takes a project from early research up to the point of clinical trials – such as testing toxicity and safety, testing whether the therapy is effective in a lab dish or in animals, and designing systems to determine how different parts of a genetic sequence function in the proposed therapy. The West Jefferson headquarters leads research up to the point of clinical trials, its San Francisco-area lab tests purity and potency of cell and gene therapies, and New Albany adds manufacturing and labs for process development, analytics and quality testing.
Clients can rent manufacturing space that they staff, fully outsource the work to AmplifyBio, or deploy a hybrid of client researchers augmented by AmplifyBio's capabilities.
Central Ohio has a shortage of lab and clean-room space. The first four clean rooms are installed in New Albany, and a vast hangar-like space is ready to add new modular suites.
The infrastructure is expensive to build and staff, Wilson said, so a client renting the space can focus resources on getting its treatment into the clinic.
"We support all of the technology transfer," Wilson said.
AmplifyBio has more than 300 employees, about 30 of them at New Albany so far. The company has recruited from Boston, Denver and California. The only stressor is finding enough housing, Ganjei said, echoing a chronic complaint in the region.
With the right expertise in place to design processes that can expand to commercial scale, Ganjei said, now the company is working with JobsOhio and trade group Ohio Life Sciences to train Central Ohioans for the specialized operations.
That kind of vision and ability to execute on it was why Battelle recruited the CEO from a Memphis regenerative medicine company that also offered "end-to-end" services, said Von Thaer, the spinout's chairman.
"He was the one who'd been there and done this before," Von Thaer said.
Separately, AmplifyBio indicated in a regulatory filing last year that it had raised nearly $50 million toward a $100 million goal, but the company cannot comment yet on the round. In 2021 it launched with $100 million worth of in-kind property and equipment from Battelle and $100 million in venture capital, then landed a $50 million credit facility.
