Georgetown Biotech Center Signs Agreement With Texas A&M

The Georgetown-based Texas Life-sciences Collaboration Center has signed an agreement that will facilitate cooperation with the Texas A&M University System, including a new medical school that will be opening soon in Williamson County.

“This Memorandum of Understanding will enable TLCC to take a lead role in commercializing technology that will spin out of the health-science components of Texas A & M,” said TLCC Executive Director Russ Peterman. .

TLCC, which opened last year, is a non-profit entity supported by the City of Georgetown, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, and Southwestern University. It was formed to help companies that have commercially viable biotechnology products take them to the next level. Support services provided by the TLCC include business consulting, accounting, legal services, and advice on securing venture capital and other funding sources. Well-equipped biotechnology wet labs and a nanotechnology clean room with anatomic force microscope that will allow nanotechnology inspection on an atomic scale will be available in 2009 as the center continues to grow. (Pictured: Dr. Louis Brousseau and Ed Miles with Quantum Logic Devices, a nanotech company at the TLCC.)

The agreement also is expected to facilitate joint research projects and provide opportunities for Texas A&M medical and graduate research students at TLCC.

While the Texas A&M medical school facility that is set to break ground in Williamson County this fall will initially be focused on clinical training, Peterman said that health-related research is likely to “rapidly evolve” at the campus. In addition, TLCC has proposed a teaching lab for A & M and other medical students at its facility in the Georgetown South Commercial Park. Peterman noted that Dr. Tom Hedman of Orthopeutics, L.P., one of four companies that are currently part of TLCC, also has a faculty appointment at Texas A & M.

Peterman said he hopes TLCC will eventually have relationships will all Texas-based campuses that have clinical training and medical research, including Baylor, Texas Tech, and The University of Texas System Health Science Center.

“With commercialization, the key is to get in early,” Peterman said. “This agreement with Texas A&M will facilitate commercialization of biotechnology and medical devices for TLCC. We believe this could be the beginning of something big, and we hope to see other similar agreements in the future.”

The Texas Life-sciences Collaboration Center at 111 Cooperative Way in Georgetown is less than five miles from the future Texas A&M medical school campus. For contact information, see the TLCC website at www.texaslifesciences.com.