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BioVigilant President Dewey Manzer gives a company overview and explains some of the strengths of the bioscience industry in Tucson |
What is the history of Biovigilant?
Biovigilant was established in 2002; we pursued detecting bio agents for several years for the government market, and then in 2005 we targeted the pharmaceutical market and adapted our product to detect bacteria in clean rooms for pharmaceutical companies.
This is a complete company in that we come up with the technology concepts, we develop the products, we put the marketing plans together, we do the selling, we do the manufacturing, all within our facility.
Why is Biovigilant located in Tucson, and what are the advantages to a bio company for locating here?
There are a couple of reasons why Biovigilant is located in Tucson. First of all the founders were here. And secondly the technology originated here and it was an optical technology for detecting particle sizes, and then eventually bacteria in the air. It originated around the focus of Tucson on optics technology, and the business end was developed around that technology here in Tucson Biovigilant is essentially a high tech company with skill in optics, electronics, and software that has been applied to the pharmaceutical market, so we’re not a company that makes drugs or medical devices. We make a tool for manufacturing drugs. And the reason for us being here in Tucson is because of the optics technology that’s here in Tucson.
I think the attraction of Tucson for biotech companies is basically that you do have a very strong university here in The University of Arizona. We have a strong medical field including the medical school for the university, and you have many new companies that are beginning to make significant inroads, with worldwide penetration of markets like Ventana Medical Systems, which has been acquired by Roche. So our company comes at the biotech world a little differently. We are assisting biotech manufacturing as opposed to actually producing a biotech product.
What kind of funding support has Biovigilant received?
Biovigilant originally was funded by its founders, and then we brought in angel investors including the Desert Angels, located here in Tucson. We brought in an angel investor from Phoenix. Then we had investments from major venture capital companies, and from the Pima County community investment corporation, so it was a rather comprehensive list of investors, all the way from angels to institutional venture capital, and then the county is basically an economic development activity.
What is the business community in Tucson like?
The business community is quite helpful, particularly for developing early stage companies. For the size of city that Tucson is there is much more financing capability here for startup companies than one could imagine - venture capital companies, angel groups, and also support from the economic development community.
What are the strengths of Tucson particularly for a biotech company?
I believe that Tucson is a very good environment to develop new biotech companies, from the early stages to the point at which it partners with bigger companies. What we have here is a lot of technology, and we have the environment which provides the financing necessary for start up companies to develop and grow, and we also have the ability to attract major companies as seen by many of the recent acquisitions to come in and acquire the smaller companies, and then develop them further. I think that Tucson is a very vital environment for the development of biotech startup companies.
Responses provided by Dewey Manzer, CEO, Biovigilant
Learn more about Biovigilant online at www.biovigilant.com. |