Freeze-drying firm warms to Maryland's biotech zone - Lyophilization Articles & Reports

Freeze-drying firm warms to Maryland's biotech zone
May 20, 2005
Neil Adler
American City Business Journals, Inc.
After scouting space throughout the mid-Atlantic region, Israel-based Core Dynamics decided Maryland had the right chemistry for its U.S. headquarters.
The company, founded in 1997 as IMT, recently chose a new name and home in what it considers Maryland's dynamic cluster of biotech companies.
It's going to Rockville, where "there's lots of competition but also it [the biotech industry] stands together as a group," says CEO Martin Rosendale.
With 25 employees in Israel and three workers so far at 15200 Shady Grove Road, Core Dynamics is developing technologies to enable freezing and freeze-drying of living cells, as well as freezing and long-term storage of organs and tissues for transplantation. Current freeze-drying processes don't work well, and cells are often stored in liquid form.
The company plans to employ 25 local workers in two to three years and hopes to have its first product, a tissue compound used for knee-cartilage repair, on the market in less than a year -- a product that could eventually generate $100 million in revenue, Rosendale says.
Core Dynamics has tested the product on animals, by transplanting the compound into cells, and will initiate human transplants this year. Rosendale says federal regulators could give their approval by the end of the year.
With its technology, which includes patents for the freezing process, Core Dynamics says it's set to become the only company to successfully freeze-dry living cells and store organs.
Common types of injuries stand to benefit from the product, including those involving torn shoulder cartilage.
Rosendale, no stranger to the Washington-area medical community, says he's talking with biotech firms locally and internationally about integrating Core Dynamics' technologies into drug-discovery programs.
The goal is to become a major provider of products and equipment for the processing of frozen and freeze-dried blood products, which will help eliminate seasonal supply shortages. Two private investors invested $7 million, funding that should take Core Dynamics through another year or two at most.