<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Inslee tours AbSci on Vancouver visit

By Troy Brynelson, Columbian staff writer
Published: March 7, 2017, 6:47pm
2 Photos
AbSci founder and CEO Sean McClain talks with Gov. Jay Inslee at an open house at AbSci offices in downtown Vancouver on Tuesday afternoon.
AbSci founder and CEO Sean McClain talks with Gov. Jay Inslee at an open house at AbSci offices in downtown Vancouver on Tuesday afternoon. (Photos by Amanda Cowan/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

AbSci, the biotechnology company that relocated to Vancouver in August, is bucking a statewide trend in its industry.

After hosting Gov. Jay Inslee Tuesday on a tour of its new facilities, CEO Sean McClain said the company has hired four new employees since October and expects to hire a dozen more soon.

“We are meeting or exceeding expectations,” he said. “We are currently 18 employees, and we have a projection to be up to 30 employees within the next year, year and a half.”

The company’s rise contrasts with a recent report commissioned by the Washington Life Science & Global Health Advisory that found the state’s life-sciences industry is sputtering.

The February report, completed by research firm TEConomy Partners, found the industry lost 900 jobs between 2011 and 2014. The Seattle Times reported that the job loss has coincided with the expiration of research-and-development tax credits.

Inslee, who founded the advisory group that commissioned the report, said he believed that AbSci’s unique process would keep costs down and sustain its growth.

“I think the key to the success of the industry is the reduction in costs of producing a product,” he said. “That’s where AbSci is in a golden space. You’re finding these incredible advances in genetic engineering. But if the cost structure is beyond imagination, you can’t get to market.”

AbSci offers an alternative to synthetic drug manufacturing processes that have been the norm for decades. Its process uses a living organism, such as E. coli, to produce high amounts of protein that are the basis for new treatments, such as those used to make insulin.

The technology and the bacteria are then licensed to pharmaceutical companies. The method reportedly reduces production costs dramatically.

The process has helped AbSci secure millions in investment, including a $5.1 million infusion from Silicon Valley venture capital firms in August.

It has also helped the company stay confident in the Pacific Northwest, while other biotechnology companies might be enticed to move to hotbeds in Boston or the San Francisco Bay area, said McClain, a native of Sherwood, Ore.

“I grew up here; I came back here to develop the technology,” McClain said. “I know everybody at the company loves the Northwest. We have great school districts; we’re close to the mountains. We made it known to our investors that we want to stay here.”

Inslee was one of dozens of people, including several leaders from Clark County and the city of Vancouver, who attended an open house at AbSci’s third-floor offices and laboratory Tuesday in the new Hudson Building in downtown Vancouver.

After the tour, whereby attendants could see for themselves the broth-looking proteins being made, the company thanked investors and the governor, who gave AbSci $200,000 from a strategic reserve fund.

Business roundtable

Once the tour was complete, the Democratic governor met with nearly 30 stakeholders from around Clark County, many of whom asked about recent happenings from the federal government.

Questions ranged from how immigration enforcement could affect the county’s farms to the pros and cons of legalizing recreational marijuana use. Inslee joked that he was pleased to go mere minutes in Vancouver without talking about reconstructing the Interstate 5 Bridge.

A bill backing a replacement of the 100-year-old bridge passed the state House of Representatives this week.

“It was heartbreaking local legislators killed the (Columbia River Crossing bridge replacement project). That still is a painful thing. So it’s gratifying people will start to talk again,” Inslee said. “The community really needs to have a consensus about the bridge, and we have to have a replacement. We have to make sure that corridor is stable; the economy of the state of Washington depends on it.”

Mark Mantei, CEO of The Vancouver Clinic, asked how he and other county residents might get their concerns heard to ensure people do not lose health insurance as legislators look to restructure the Affordable Care Act.

“You should be extremely worried,” Inslee said. “You’re the captain of a ship with thousands of souls in your stewardship, and there are lots of people in Washington, D.C., that want to shove thousands of people overboard right now.”

Loading...
Tags
 
Columbian staff writer