Feature
Cooking Up Cures
February 26, 2007
Cook Pharmica boosts Indiana's bio- manufacturing profile and creates new jobs
Cook Pharmica will produce proteins used to perform safety assessments of bioengineered crops and active ingredients for injectable drugs to treat diseases.
After a 40-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, rising to top positions at luminaries including Eli Lilly and Co., Cook, and Baxter Pharmaceutical Solutions, Jerry Arthur had earned the right to slow down and retire to a life of leisure.
Instead, in 2004 Arthur embarked on a whole new career as president of Cook Pharmica, a new company that contracts with pharmaceutical industry scientists and companies to manufacture monoclonal antibodies — proteins derived from immune cells that are used to develop drugs to treat cancer and other diseases.
"I could be retired but I'm doing this because it's so much fun," Arthur said. "Biotechnology is a frontier for mankind, like going to Alaska in the early 1900s. We're making discoveries and well on the way toward curing debilitating and fatal diseases."
Biotechnology uses microorganisms such as bacteria, and other biological materials to manufacture products ranging from genetically altered bacteria that clean up oil spills to the synthetic insulin used by millions of people with diabetes. In medicine, the hope is that biotechnology will lead to powerful drugs that could cure cancers and other fatal diseases. Today, around 35% of drugs are created using biotechnology. But within the next fifteen years that number is expected to rise to 70%. Currently there are more than 300 biotech-derived drugs in clinical trails for diseases including various cancers, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and arthritis.
With Cook Pharmica, Cook Medical has thrown its hat into the biotech ring. Planning for the new company began in 2003, and construction of its Bloomington headquarters was completed in 2005. Cook chose to build the facility in Bloomington, Arthur said, "largely because of its proximity to IU and its chemistry and biology faculties, which have been an invaluable resource."
Arthur added that Bloomington's rich cultural life and high standard of living attract many former employees of Lilly, Pfizer Inc., Boston Scientific, and other life sciences companies, providing Cook Pharmica with several sources of experience from which to draw.
Cook Pharmica's facility houses the latest in bio-manufacturing technology.
The company's 124,000 square foot facility (expandable to 450,000 square feet with another 450,000 square feet available in a separate building) houses the latest in bio-manufacturing technology, including several small, disposable bioreactors used to manufacture sample quantities of biological agents. A 600-liter bioreactor and two 2500-liter production bioreactors are used to mass produce monoclonal antibodies for use in the drug manufacturing process.
Arthur said the technology enables Cook Pharmica to meet the manufacturing needs of companies or individuals who have discovered a promising protein or other biological agent but lack the capacity to replicate and produce enough of the material necessary for the large-scale clinical trials necessary for potential FDA approval.
In January, Cook Pharmica signed its first client, the Monsanto Company, which specializes in biotech-based agricultural products. Cook Pharmica will do small-scale manufacturing of proteins used to perform safety assessments of bioengineered crops. As the company's client list grows, Arthur hopes that Cook Pharmica's success will lead to other local successes in life sciences.
"We're excited about the potential for this company and for life sciences in Indiana in general," Arthur said. "I think it's possible that Indiana can become for bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing what Boston and San Diego are for biotech research."
Arthur added that Cook Pharmica could have an impact in stopping Indiana's so-called science "brain drain." The company currently has 140 employees, a significant number of whom are recent IU graduates, and expects to add at least another 60 jobs by the first fiscal quarter of next year.
"IU graduates are a tremendous asset to the company," Arthur said. "We've been able to hire a group of young, intelligent, and energetic chemists, microbiologists, and IT specialists and mesh them with people who've been in this industry for 30 years. That creates a pretty dynamic culture."
