A broad-based group of Spokane businesspeople and civic leaders headed by Biomedex Inc. President George Coleman and Avista Corp. executive Pete Kerwien has begun putting together what is envisioned to be a several-hundred-acre technology park near Spokane International Airport.


The development, which is expected to include land owned by Avista, the Airport Board, a Spokane development company called Granite Investments LLC, Biomedex, and others, could get under way this fall with the construction of a $15 million, 110,000-square-foot, brick-and-glass office building to be erected by Vandervert Construction Inc., of Spokane. Eventually, the park is to have many buildings and to be marketed primarily to biotech and other technology tenants, organizers say.


The exact boundaries and size of the park still are undetermined because organizers of the park still are discussing details with the landowners, all of whom have agreed to cooperate in the effort. Generally, however, it will be located north of the airport and adjacent to both the east and west sides of Boeing Co.s West Plains plant along U.S. 2, says Lowell McKee, a partner in Granite Investments.


Granite Investments has bought a 152-acre parcel east of Boeing from Avista Development, a unit of Avista Corp., and plans to begin work on the park there soon, McKee says. He says the first building in the development, the 110,000-square-foot office structure, will be similar in design and size to one Vandervert Construction completed at 609 E. Holland on Spokanes North Side earlier this year. That part of the development also is to include an extension of Flint Road from U.S. 2 south to Airport Drive, providing access into the park and giving the airport a northern entrance.


The park, to be called The Pacific Northwest Technology Park, is to have a campus design, featuring waterfalls at the entries, and waterfalls also are to be adopted for the entrance into the airport, McKee says.


Coleman, who announced plans for a much smaller, 57-acre park on the west side of Boeings plant last year, says Biomedex will be a tenant in the first building that Granite Investments will develop, and that the land Biomedex had optioned for the original park is expected eventually to be added to the overall development. Coleman had envisioned that the park would cost about $200 million to develop, but McKee says it now would be safe to assume the cost would be much higher, considering how much the scope of the project has changed. He declines to speculate on the overall value of the project, though, because the park will take several years to come to fruition and its eventual size is dependent on landing some big users, perhaps including pharmaceutical companies with which Biomedex already is doing business.


This is the result of two years of planning and work by EDC volunteers to create a first-class development to help us attract biotechnology and other firms, says Mark Turner, president and CEO of the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, in a prepared statement.


He adds that Coleman was the catalyst for this project. Through his wide range of contacts in the biotech industry, he has recognized that there is tremendous opportunity to attract biotech firms to this region.


Added Spokane Airports CEO and Executive Director John Morrison, With this new development and the other expansion activities taking place on the West Plains, we are truly situated in the regions path of progress.


Coleman already has been working with an architectural firm and an engineering firm, both from Wisconsin and both of which have extensive experience in biotechnology construction, on a proposed, state-of-the-art biotech manufacturing plant that Biomedex or another user could occupy at the park. McKee says those Wisconsin companies, as well as local concerns, still will be involved in the project now that Granite Investments and possibly others are spearheading development plans.


Coleman says the biotech industry is growing rapidly in such West Coast metropolitan areas as the Puget Sound and the San Francisco Bay area, and that finding affordable manufacturing space in both those markets is difficult. He says that the team Biomedex and Granite Investments will put together could erect and certify new U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved manufacturing facilities for a big biotech company relatively quickly and on inexpensive land, making Spokane an attractive location for companies that are readying new products for market and need plants soon.


Biomedex


Biomedexs future, meanwhile, is starting to come into focus. The company, launched here last year by a group of former Bayer Corp. executives, including Coleman, introduced its first productan alcohol disinfectant for use in sterile labslast spring to provide the company with an early revenue stream while it pursued additional goals.


In general, those goals included: providing expertise and production to other manufacturers that are taking products to market, distributing other biotech companies products, and buying rights to products to manufacture itself.


Soon after launching the specialty disinfectant, Biomedex bought the rights to manufacture, market, and distribute the patented DermaPik II Skin Test System, a new allergy testing product invented by Dr. Isadore Pitesky, of Long Beach, Calif.


The product, which is to be used by allergy specialists to test for the causes of allergic reactions, consists of plastic trays in which allergens are placed, and sharp plastic pricking tools used to get the allergens under a patients skin. The system was designed to allow allergens to be applied to the skin either one at a time or in groups of 10, speeding up the often tedious process of allergy testing.


Biomedex received FDA approval to sell the product last spring, and had hoped to begin manufacturing itthrough a contract manufacturer in Californialast summer, but hit snags in that manufacturing relationship. The Spokane company now expects manufacturing of the product to begin next month.


In the meantime, though, Biomedex has determined theres more potential for the product than earlier was thought. The company now has on its payroll three biotech marketing executives with national reputations in the allergy market, and early response to their work, including one large pre-order about which Biomedex declines to release details, have been encouraging, says Bob Pomrenke, director of sales and marketing.


Biomedex earlier had predicted that it could secure 10 percent of the estimated $10 million annual market for allergy-testing devices. It now believes it easily can capture 30 percent of that market, meaning annual sales from the DermaPik II alone could be in the $3 million range.


Biomedex also has entered a market that perhaps more clearly represents where it will head in the future, says Coleman.


In that step, Biomedex recently has landed a contract with a big San Francisco-area biotech company, which nondisclosure agreements prevent it from naming, to do what is called pre-clinical contract processing.


Despite what that term might normally imply, it means that Biomedex has begun designing and documenting the process by which its customer will manufacture components to be used in new products headed for clinical trial. Biomedex will go through all the tedious FDA requirements for preparing such equipment for the manufacturing process, and detailing all the steps the manufacturing workers back in California must take when the actual process begins.


Such customers are willing to hire companies like Biomedex to do that because, We can do it faster because we have no bureaucracy, says Coleman.


Though the contract provides another heady revenue stream for Biomedex, the big payoff could come later, he says. With the contract, Biomedex has established a relationship with the manufacturer, and when that company is ready to take its product to the next stage, such as clinical trial work and eventually full-scale manufacturing, Biomedex would have a foot in the door in trying to get some or all of that workor luring the manufacturer to the planned West Plains tech park, Coleman says.


Biomedex can handle the pre-clinical contract processing work at its current location within SIRTI, which includes a biotech lab with a certified clean room, but will need to have much larger and better-equipped quarters on the West Plains to be able to take on larger customer jobs.


Even at SIRTI, however, Biomedex is growing. Its currently in the process of doubling the amount of space it leases at SIRTI, and now employs 17 people, up from 11 in March. It expects to employ about 25 by the end of this year, and somewhere between 50 and 125 by the end of next year, depending on how quickly its production plans come about. The company also has opened a one-person sales office in Seattle.


Most of the new hires at Biomedex will be in production, distribution, and support, although the company still is looking to fill some management posts, including director of production and director of regulatory affairs, Coleman says.


In addition to a new national sales manager, Arlene Lantz, and a senior manager of scientific affairs, Ken Schawel, Biomedex also has hired as medical director Dr. Robert A. Bud Stier Jr., a man with roots in Spokanes largest biotech companies, Hollister-Stier Laboratories Inc. Stiers father was co-founder of the original Hollister-Stier allergy compounds manufacturer, which later became part of Bayer Corp. and last year was purchased by local interests to operate independently again.