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Area's Medical Products Makers to Work With Development Group

Posted on: Sunday, 23 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

By Fred O. Williams

Buffalo's medical products makers are joining with its biotech development group in a bid to boost the region's life science industry.

The Health Care Industries Association (HCIA), which represents manufacturers, will share staff and budgets with Bufflink, a development-oriented group that works to springboard university research into products and jobs.

"There is local commercialization taking place, but when we benchmark ourselves against other cities . . . we realize we have to do more," said Alan Olhoeft, executive director of Bufflink.

Working together, the two organizations should be able to match more local companies with laboratory ideas that have potential to become commercial products.

Olhoeft will serve as executive director of both organizations, which will have combined budget of about $350,000 and a staff of four.

The HCIA has 40 member companies and represents a total of about 125 medical product manufacturers in the Buffalo region, said Dr. Thomas P. Stewart, president of the group and of Gaymar Industries, a 200-job medical products manufacturer in Orchard Park.

The manufacturers group has ties with 650 medical product manufacturers in the region extending from Rochester through Southern Ontario, which could be a base for commercialization.

"To have a first look at technologies coming out of the university, that's a great thing," Stewart said.

Life science industries have produced about 1,200 jobs and 25 new companies in the region over the past four years, according to Bufflink.

The commercial spin-off activity isn't considered proportionate with the resources being pumped into life science research at the state's bioinformatics center, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. Many local companies lack the size to have business development staff looking for new technology at area institutions, Olhoeft said.

Area research got an additional boost this week with the announcement of two National Cancer Institute Grants totaling $6.7 million over five years. The projects, at UB and Roswell Park, will develop nanotechnology for speedier diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer, and light-sensitive particles for targeted diagnosis and treatment of tumors.

Thomas Bienias, president of the hospital products maker Ethox International in Buffalo, said the region should benefit from better links between university research and local companies.

His 300-person company is developing a UB-invented catheter that can diagnose heart ailments via the esophagus instead of through an artery, making it cheaper and less invasive than current treatments. Product development is being aided by $750,000 in commercialization funds from a state development program, he said.

"These are great minds at the university . . . there's a lot of stuff out there," he said.

Bufflink and HCIA remain separate organizations for now with plans to combine at some point, Olhoeft and Thomas said. Angelo Fatta, Bufflink's founder and volunteer president, has transitioned to board chairman.

The groups' goal is to work jointly on increasing business opportunities now and handle administrative details of a merger later, they said.

"I think they complement each other," said Dr. Robert Genco, director of UB's commercialization arm, the Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach. The move bolsters the grant-supported Bufflink organization's future by broadening its funding base to the member-supported organization, he said.

e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com

Source: Buffalo News

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