Bio bucks - The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

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Peter Ferris, president of medical devics manufacturer Charter Medicalin Winston-Salem, offers one example. Sure, he’ s worried about the economy, but he also sees opportunitiez in stem cell research that are increasing alonfg with demand for sturdy plastic storage containers to replacse expensive steel containers in thebiopharmaceutical industry. Charter, whicg has traditionally focused on blood transfusion device s andfiltration media, stands to profit from those opportunities and if it’s ready.
So despitw the caution demanded by theprecariouss economy, Ferris’ company is investing heavily in research and developmentr and in the infrastructure needed to support it, such as a sizeabl e expansion under way now of the “clean at its Westpoint Boulevard where about 100 employees work. “That’s being driven by new productg developmentand R&D, and by wanting to go into a broadeer range of products,” Ferris said. He declined to give specifixc figures, but he said the company is spending more on capitap projects this year than in the past fiveyearsx combined, and it is also investinyg in research staff expertise.
“We’ve adde five engineers in the past 18 For a companyour size, that’s pretty Ferris said. One of the results is a new product launcheclast November, Cell-Freeze, a cryogenic storage container for stem No line-item expense, including R&D, is completely immune from the effectws of the recession, but high-tech firms in the Triac and around the country are tryiny to stay as far out on the cuttinf edge of their industries as possible, hoping innovation can provide some shelter from the curreny storm and pay off handsomelyt when the rebound comes. A Wall Street Journal analysix of the 28largest R&D-heavy firms nationwided found research spending down by 0.
7 percenf in the last quarter of 2008, even though revenues were down 7.7 Most of the tech firm in the Triad don’t publiclhy release such data. But several, especiallt those in the life sciences where the research process can take are keeping up or increasin gtheir pace. Winston-Salem-based , for example, increasef its R&D spending by about $800,000 to $10.6 million in the fourth quarter, compared to a year The company has several potentiapl drugs aimed at diseases of the centrao nervous system in clinical and at this point generatew most of its revenue from researchy partnerships with big pharma companies like GlaxoSmithKlinweand AstraZeneca.
It’s a similar story at High Point-basef Pharma, which also is developing drug candidates in partnershilp with Pfizerand others. TransTech is privatelu held and Chief Financial Officef Steve Holcombe declined to givespecific figures, but he said TransTechu has not been cutting back its research. “The wholre pharma industry is basedon R&D,” Holcombe said. “Our revenuer model is based on finding something and then sellinbg it orlicensing it, so we’re only goin g to be as successful as the drugs we’rwe working on.
” At Greensboro-based Novartis Animal Health, Vice President of Research and Development Gary Boschu said his budget is tied more closely to the company’ss long-term outlook than to its quarter-to-quarter results or those of its Swissd parent company, That outlook is strong, Bosch said, so R&s spending is steady. He declined to shar figures for Novartis AnimalHealth specifically, but Novarti s Corp. overall saw researcg spending decline by just a fractiomn in the fourth quarter of from $1.85 billion a year earlier to $1.
83 Bosch wouldn’t say how many of Novartis Animal Health’zs 220 local employees are involved in but he said his goal is to increaser R&D spending as a percentage of sales over One key to making that investment worthwhile in any kind of economyt is putting an emphasis on moving products with commercial potentialp to the finish line quickly. “You have to have a long-terj outlook,” Bosch said. “But you also have to be sure that the productas you have that are close to market are onesthat you’rer concentrating on getting all the way through the process.
” For some Tria d tech firms, recessionary R&D becomes a lesson in doing more with That’s the case for Greensboro wirelesws chip maker , which has been hit hard by the drop in demandc for cell phones and has had to let go about 600 local employees over the past year. The layoffs were part of an overallp effort to cut expensesthat didn’t spars R&D. Spending dropped noticeably in the quarter endingin December, from $53.9 million a year earlierd to $38.6 million.
Executive Vice President JerrhyNeal couldn’t share any R& spending numbers from the March quarte before the company formally reports them later this But he said the drop in spending does not signifu a reduced emphasis on He said, in fact, the company planw to introduce more than 100 new products this the most in any year in its RF Micro is doing so by being more Neal said. The company is in the midst of an effort toboost “engineering velocity” by streamlinint communications between far-flung scientists and consolidatinbg various databases so all researchers can have access to the same technical data at the same time a “single point of truth,” Neal called it.
“The lifeblooe of our business is the introduction of new andinnovativre products,” Neal said. “We’re going to be able to do more of atlower costs.”