Belgian company Biologistics Consulting is one of the first tenants of a new office space for startups at the University City Science Center‘s Port Business Incubator.
The space that offers the necessities for any life sciences and technology startup — a desk, a phone and high speed Wi-Fi access, and is located in the Port Business Incubator at 3711 Market St. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It also provides access to services at the Science Center such as the Quorum, which hosts seminars and conferences as well as provides meeting space.
Biologostics is a Belgian government agency to help businesses expand in Europe and optimize their supply chains.
Chris Laing, the Science Center’s vice president of science and technology, runs the Port Business Incubator. He said the idea for the Bullpen is to provide as much flexibility to companies as possible and reflects what’s available at other incubators around the country. Previously the incubator only provided office and lab space.
The Bullpen is built to accommodate nine people, Laing said.
Although the Port Business Incubator has many international tenants, that is not by design, said Laing.
“We accommodate both U.S. and foreign companies, but of course many foreign companies when making a move to the U.S., want to start small. The idea for many companies is to take office or lab space, but we have no predefined trajectory; that evolves naturally.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Biologistics business developer Matt Hollander said the company’s main mission is to work with medical device and biotechnology companies and assist them by guiding them through the expansion process. Speaking of the office space he said, “It’s very convenient.”
Biologistics Consulting is a graduate of the Science Center’s “Global Soft Landing Program” that helps non-U.S. companies gain a foothold in the region’s life sciences and technology market.
Clean tech company Gadore is also a tenant. The Science Center is in discussions with three other potential tenants.
Although tenancy agreements can be as little as six months, the average tenancy in the incubator is two years. Laing said it would assess the Bullpen’s size in the future, depending on demand.
“If they are not quite ready for a cubicle, office or lab, a desk in the Bullpen offers an inexpensive, flexible solution,” said Stephen S. Tang, the CEO of the University City Science Center, in a statement.
Another Belgian company, Arlenda, has joined the Global Soft Landing program and taken office space at the Port Business Incubator. Arlenda is a spinoff from the University of Liege in Belgium and specializes in applied modeling and statistics for pharmaceuticals and vaccines, using statistical and software solutions for nonclinical and early clinical development, pharmaceutical manufacture and quality control. Among the institutions it works with in the Philadelphia region are Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Thomas Jefferson University, Temple University, Merck (NYSE:MRK), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Janssen Biotech.
The Science Center dates back to 1963 and claims to be the oldest and largest urban research park in the United States.
