the Marin Economic Forum estimates. The biotech mini-boom
is an outgrowth of the region’s strength in life sciences. While
other counties, such as San Mateo, may have more companies,
we have more life sciences businesses per capita here than in
any other California county, according to the MEF.
Biotech companies harness living organisms to create
products and processes. Many, like BioMarin, are drugmakers, using living cells cultured in stainless-steel vats to
produce enzymes that can treat diseases.
A RARE BREED
BioMarin specializes in “ultra-orphan” drugs, meaning that
the enzymes it formulates treat uncommon genetic disor-
ders. Vimizim, approved by the FDA last February, is for rare
metabolic syndrome Morquio A, which afflicts 260 known
sufferers in the United States. BioMarin executives refer to
many of their customers by their first names, and patients
themselves have suited up to tour the plant and visit with
scientists researching new cures.
“We treat rare diseases, and that gives us rare opportunities,” says Chris Brodeur, associate director of commercial
manufacturing, who likes to show visitors photos of the
time he and a patient’s mother swam to Alcatraz together
in a fundraising effort to combat Morquio A. Employees are
especially tight with that patient’s family, who relocated
from Chile so the patient could participate in a clinical trial
at Children’s Hospital Oakland.
As for the company’s older drugs, like Naglazyme,
approved in 2005 to treat a disorder called MPS VI, some
staff members are now working with patients they have
watched grow up. MPS VI patients, short in stature and with
enlarged heads, can suffer from poor endurance; Naglazyme
To enter the
rooms where the
company cultures
and purifies the
enzymes that make
up its drugs,
workers first enter
an air lock, where
they don rubber
gloves and unwrap
freshly laundered
lab coats from
plastic packaging.
