Move could spark economic growth

The Medical University of South Carolina will soon break ground on a building in which researchers will expand their work in developing, patenting and licensing new drugs. In the process, university officials hope to spark economic development in Charleston.

MUSC Provost John Raymond says the move probably won't bring in a lot of money for the university in the short run, but it will allow academic researchers to develop drugs that large pharmaceutical companies ignore because they likely won't yield huge profits. It also could promote economic development because spinoff companies probably will expand work initiated at the university, he said. Eleven such companies have come out of the university in the past decade.

University officials hope to break ground on the 110,000-square-foot Drug Discovery Building in early 2008, Raymond said. It's the first of three new research buildings on the university's drawing board and will be built in G parking lot on President Street. Officials hope to begin construction on a bioengineering building in 2009 and a building devoted to patient research several years later.

The work in all of those buildings will represent a new way of thinking and working at the university, Raymond said, adding that the approach to research must become more collaborative. Researchers usually work in certain disciplines such as pharmacology or biomedicine. But under the new system, researchers on interdisciplinary teams will work toward developing drugs to combat specific diseases. MUSC is especially interested in drugs for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological problems, Raymond said.

The Drug Discovery Building, dedicated to drug development, would promote that kind of collaboration. Raymond added that the state's three research universities - MUSC, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina - must work together more closely if they want to be competitive in the research arena. In the 2005-06 school year, the three universities combined brought in about $500 million in research grants, he said. By comparison, the University of North Carolina alone brought in about that much.

Professors Kenneth Tew and Chuck Smith are researchers who work in MUSC's Hollings Cancer Center developing cancer drugs. They will both move to the Drug Discovery Building when it's completed. Smith said the university isn't trying to become a drug company, but he wants scientific discoveries made at the university to be further developed there. The new building will help researchers do that, he said.

University researchers would do the early stage drug discovery work, which usually costs less than work done later in the process, then pass off their work to pharmaceutical companies with more money to invest. Tew said the university could eventually benefit financially from the drug discovery process. He said most new potential drugs don't make it to the marketplace. Those that do often bring in millions of dollars in profit. Tew said he can't estimate the amount MUSC is likely to make in drug development, but "over 10 years, I'd be shocked if there was nothing."

An institution has to "be committed to doing it for decades" if it wants to be successful, Raymond said. Any money brought in would be reinvested in the university. The drug discovery process at MUSC is getting a boost from two pots of state money. About $34 million will come from the Life Science Act to help cover some of the cost of the $60 million building. The Life Science Act provides bond funds to the state's research universities if they raise matching funds from private sources.

Some key researchers, including Tew and Smith, will be paid through the South Carolina Research Centers of Economic Excellence Act, also known as the Endowed Chairs program. The legislation uses state lottery funds, which the universities must match, to create endowments. Income from the endowments is used to promote economic development through research at the state's three research universities. So far, the Legislature has allocated $150 million in lottery proceeds to the program. The rest of the funding will come from a federal construction grant and private gifts.