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www.wbjournal.com • Worcester Business Journal 23 25 YEARS: IMPACTFUL COMPANIES Hometown Bank, 31 Sutton Avenue, Oxford, MA 01540 • (508) 987-1200 ATHOL • AUBURN • LEOMINSTER • OXFORD • S. LANCASTER • STURBRIDGE • WEBSTER (2) Toll-Free (888) 307-5887 • www.hometowncoop.com Celebrating 125 years of the way banking should be. Personal Banking • Business Banking • SBA Preferred Lender Home of the Totally-Free NOW Checking Account Join us for the GRAND OPENING of our newest Hometown Bank Branch 9 Sack Boulevard, Leominster Saturday, October 18 9 am - 1 pm Prizes • Entertainment • Giveaways WBJ Anniversary Ad_Layout 1 9/12/14 3:46 PM Page 1 W hen Genzyme Transgenics of Framingham, along with collabo- rating scientists from Tufts' veterinary school and Louisiana State University, announced in 1999 they had cloned the world's first transgenic goats, The McDuffy Report noted a decade later, "The world not only sat up and took notice. It also realized that nothing would ever quite be the same again…. [T]his was truly the stuff of science fic- tion coming to life in the real world." With transgenics, DNA is taken from one species and implanted in the genetic structure of another. rEVO Biologics uses this process to develop and produce human therapeutics in the milk of ani- mals. After rEVO successfully cloned its first goat, testing showed the animal was in fact transgenic. And the goat's milk tested positive for a protein found in human plasma that helps regulate blood clotting. The idea for an animal-milk protein was the brainchild of researchers at Biogen, in Cambridge, in the 1980s. The lead scientist was eventually hired by Genzyme, which spun off Genzyme Transgenics in 2002, which itself was acquired in 2011 by France-based LFB Biotechnologies and renamed rEVO in 2013. In 2006, Europe's top drug-regulation committee rejected rEVO's anti-clotting drug, ATryn, because it had been tested in too few people to determine whether it was safe and effective. The drug was eventually approved for use in the European Union for hereditary anti- thrombin deficiency patients undergo- ing surgical procedures. LEO Pharma has since been commercializing and developing the drug in Europe. Two years later, in 2008, rEVO signed a collaboration agreement with Ovation Pharmaceuticals to develop and market ATryn in the U.S. The deal included $257 million in potential payments to rEVO for meeting clinical, regulatory and sales milestones. rEVO was also seeking other applications of ATryn, although, according to The McDuffy Report, "the projected market initially for ATryn is small — an estimated $50 million." In 2009, the FDA approved ATryn for the prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolism in hereditary anti- thrombin deficient patients undergoing surgery or childbirth procedures. It was, as The McDuffy Report noted, "an his- torical event and tipping point in the progression of bio-pharma technology." The tipping point has led to a ground- breaking. Last March, rEVO announced plans to raise and maintain a colony of 1,000 to 1,200 genetically engineered rabbits at its Charlton facility to produce a blood-clotting agent for hemophilia patients. Construction began in August; production is set to start next summer. Genzyme Transgenics (now rEVO Biologics) rEVO Biologics, a company that traces its lineage to Genzyme Corp., is at the vanguard of using cloning and transgenics techniques for medical applications. Its Charlton facility is being expanded. >> Continued on Page 24 10