SSOUTH OUTHC OUTH COAST OUTHCOAST the next wave
BY ARLENE R. MARTEL | PHOTOS BY ALEXEY SERGEEV
MASSACHUSETTS’
GOLD COAST SOUTHCOAST: BIOTECHNOLOGY, ENERGY, AND LIFESTYLE THE NEXT BIG THING IN:
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SOUTHCOAST fishing port for landed catch, with seafood processing facilities and a deepwater harbor reconfiguring itself to meet the demands of clean energy. Fall River, too, is reinventing itself, as a player in medical device and biomanufacturing.
GOLDEN BEACHES GOLDEN FUTURE HILLMAN STREET, NEW BEDFORD
SOUTHCOAST’S CARPE DIEM LIFESTYLE Really Did Start with Codfish Stretching from Westport to Wareham, within southern Bristol and Plymouth counties, SouthCoast communities share abundant aquatic resources that impact the region’s prosperity via healthy travel-tourism, recreational watersports, bio-manufacturing, commercial fishing, and renewable energy sectors. Whether bordering directly on Buzzards Bay (deepwater port city New Bedford, towns of Westport, Dartmouth, Acushnet, Fairhaven, Mattapoisett, Marion, Wareham); abutting Mount Hope Bay (deepwater port city Fall River, towns of Swansea, Somerset, Seekonk); or falling within the vast Buzzards Bay watershed (towns of Freetown, Lakeville, and Rochester), SouthCoast communities share a carpe diem spirit and a coastal New England lifestyle sought by many. Because Buzzards Bay boasts a unique geological configuration that funnels Gulf Stream-heated currents toward SouthCoast’s 350 miles of shoreline, residents are blessed with the mildest climate (and lowest snowfall) in the Commonwealth. Waters along the region’s 11 miles of public beaches tend to warm up faster and stay toasty longer than seascapes exposed to colder Atlantic currents. That’s welcome news for windsurfers, kayakers, anglers, and beach-loving vacationers choosing to ‘seize the day’ on Buzzards Bay.
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CONGESTION-FREE BY LAND, AIR OR SEA Travel throughout the SouthCoast is a breeze–by land, air or sea–with networks of major highways, two international airports within an hour’s reach, and a regional airport FOB for corporate jets. New Bedford is homeport to passenger cruise lines, charter yachts, and island ferry service to Martha’s Vineyard and Cuttyhunk. One of the last working waterfronts in New England, New Bedford is the nation’s #1 commercial
The quantity of gold discovered in SouthCoast is miniscule, yet this southeastern corner of the Commonwealth is speeding toward a future where it can lay claim to the ‘Massachusetts Gold Coast’ moniker as a region of unsurpassed natural beauty, where quality of life really matters, and 21st century career opportunities await. Helping to ensure the quality of life for residents in SouthCoast, Southcoast Health System, the region’s largest community based healthcare delivery system, offers an integrated continuum of health services throughout Southeastern Massachusetts and East Bay, Rhode Island. It includes the three hospitals that make up Southcoast Hospitals Group — Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham. Southcoast’s team of expert caring staff provides advanced clinical services, such as open heart surgery, angioplasty and heart rhythm services, comprehensive cancer care, neurosurgery, weight loss surgery, orthopedic surgery, advanced imaging services, and is the only provider of maternity services in the region. Lured by a cost-of-living up to 50% lower than the Greater Boston area, affordable housing, and the security of small town living, visitors are ‘Friending’ SouthCoast in everincreasing numbers.
SOUTHCOAST’S PORTAL TO GLOBAL GROWTH If the oft-quoted adage that ‘the road to economic development in the Bay State is paved through the University of Massachusetts’ applies equally to the future, then that road is an expressway that leads directly to the UMass Dartmouth campus that is SouthCoast’s global portal to sustainable growth. So, carpe diem, and meet me at the Zipcar lot.
AMERICA’S FIRST ‘BIOTECH TEST KITCHEN’ When Exit 9-B opened to traffic on Route 24 just 45 miles south of Cambridge in May, dignitaries lining the off-ramp did more than snip a ribbon marking completion of a $37 million federal stimulus project. They created a ‘fast lane’ interchange from the bio bastions of Kendall Square to the SouthCoast Life Science & Technology Park at Fall River and its $28 million centerpiece, the Massachusetts Accelorator for Biomanufacturing at UMass Dartmouth (MAB). Accessed via aptly-named Innovation Way, the MAB is scheduled to open in 2013 and expected to transform the SouthCoast region, offering emerging Life Sciences companies an affordable platform for product development and demonstration. The MAB’s recipe for success is based
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VIEW FROM BRAYTON BEACH, SOMERSET OF BORDEN FLATS LIGHTHOUSE, MOUNT HOPE BAY AND SAINT ANNE’S CHURCH, FALL RIVER
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on a simple scientific observation— techniques that work in small vessels in research labs often don’t work as well in the larger bio-manufacturing equipment required for commercialscale production. To force a fudge brownie-baking analogy, Grandma’s scrumptious recipe might be foolproof baked at 300 degrees for 15 minutes in a 9 x 12 inch dish, but multiply it a thousand-fold (‘scale-up manufacturing process’ in ‘Biotechspeak’) to meet FDA approval, and that recipe might require some tweaking.
SHOW ME THE MONEY For bio-tech manufacturing companies on a budget, a professionallymanaged, large-scale 35,000 sq. ft. Bio-manufacturing facility like the MAB would do the trick to test new products heading to market, but until now, there were few affordable options.
To spur development in this sector, UMD envisioned a state-of-the-art core facility that’s fully-equipped with everything a company needs (think stainless steel fermenters, quality control labs, purification suites) to conduct ongoing research, train its workforce, and ‘scaleup’ manufacturing of its hottest ‘breakthrough’ drug (vaccine, stem cell or bio-engineered tissue) in preparation for pre-clinical trials. The MAB offers early-stage companies competitive lab and processing fees capable of slashing typical pertrial-costs. Successful ‘graduating’ companies that secure FDA approval have access to local and state financial incentives that facilitate construction of their own full-scale facilities on shovel-ready sites in the adjacent prepermitted 300-acre Bio-Park. Educational programs at the MAB are linked with studies at the UMD campus that lead to undergraduate
SOUTHCOAST degrees in Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering. Companies can tap a deep skilled labor pool, fed by some 15,000 graduates annually, selected from among 13 public and private colleges. MAB estimates that the Life Science Park could generate some 8,000 jobs, $280 million in annual payroll, and $275 million in private-development investment within its first ten years of operation. Layer those stats atop the contributions of the 25 medicaltechnology and Life Sciences companies already employing nearly 3,500 across SouthCoast, and the future looks appetizing for this ‘fast-rising’ regional Life Sciences manufacturing cluster. Bon appétit!
THIS LITTLE BIOTECH WENT TO MARKET ‘Big Dogs’ in the Life Sciences industry took notice when Bay State biotech, Celldex Therapeutics, concluded its global search with a decision to base ‘next generation vaccine’ R&D at the state-of-the-art UMass Dartmouth Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center (ATMC) located in the SouthCoast Research and Technology Park in Fall River. Providing a bridge between academia and industry, the ATMC is a microcosm of the UMass vision— providing solutions today to meet the future’s needs. Its Technology Ventures Center (TVC) serves as a ‘business incubator’ for emerging
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Life Science companies like Imgen BioSciences, Boston Open Labs, and Phosphorex. The TVC provides entrepreneurs with essential tools to launch new businesses, and is suitable for fledgling companies in medical device manufacturing, Life Science, marine science, ‘green energy,’ and technology-based industries. One innovative startup nurtured at the ATMC, NuOrtho Surgical, began with a mission to help orthopedic surgeons battle osteoarthritis, then utilized tax incentives from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center at a critical stage of development to grow its company and generate SouthCoast jobs. Approved by the USDA in 2010, the company’s Fall River-manufactured CeruleauTM device was used for the first time in the nation at Southcoast Hospitals Group’s St. Luke’s site in New Bedford. This cutting-edge device—that removes damaged cartilage during arthroscopic knee surgery without harming healthy tissue—is currently marketed as a breakthrough treatment for articular cartilage disease.
‘WICKED COOL STUFF’ MADE IN SOUTHCOAST Neurostimulators that control seizures. ‘Bionic ears’ that bring sound to the deaf. Drug-delivery systems that dose with precision. Since the first cardiac pacemaker was implanted in the U.S. 45 years ago, innovators have created an array of implantable electronics that transform
lives daily. Many display a ‘Made in SouthCoast’ maker’s mark. So, too, do countless other medical devices manufactured by companies that thrive on SouthCoast soil.
Innovators have created an array of implantable electronics that transform lives daily... many display a ‘Made in SouthCoast’ maker’s mark Morgan Technical Ceramics is a world leader in the design and manufacture of ceramic orthopedic joint replacements and highly complex ceramic-to-metal assemblies for implantable devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, and defibrillators. A NYSE company with an impressive global footprint, Symmetry Medical is a leading source of innovative medical device solutions, including orthopedic implants and precision surgical instruments used in hip, knee and shoulder reconstruction, as well as in spinal, trauma and other implant procedures. Since acquiring its first parcel in 2008, Symmetry has expanded its manufacturing facility and relocated its Design & Development Center to the New Bedford Business Park, already a magnet for East Coast medical device manufacturing and Life Science companies. Exemplar Pharmaceuticals is an inhalation product developer and contract manufacturer whose expanded Fall River facility was designed specifically for the production of pressurized metered dose inhaler products, nasal sprays,
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Headquartered in Fall River, Millstone Medical Outsourcing operates two of its three U.S. facilities from SouthCoast, where it has expanded from start-up to outsource partner to the nation’s top orthopedic companies. Helping speed revolutionary products to market, Millstone is the fast-growing provider of advanced inspection, clean room packaging, and distribution services to medical and dental device manufacturers worldwide. Pro-business communities throughout SouthCoast have the skilled workers, creative financing, and proper zoning in place to make business more profitable for companies like Morgan Ceramics, Symmetry Medical, Five Star Companies, Exemplar, and Millstone, that are providing solutions for today’s needs and tomorrow’s growth.
U.S. OCEAN ENERGY UNTAPPED Energy is the critical challenge of the 21st Century. Global demand is increasing. Developing countries strain an already limited supply. Aging power grids strain to carry loads from ever-distant sources. New England’s energy crisis is urgent, but the good news is that MA has an Ocean Management Plan and SouthCoast is uniquely positioned at the epicenter of discoveries in offshore wind, wave, and tidal technologies
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GOOSEBERRY NECK, WESTPORT
and dry powder inhalers. Exemplar is among a select few contract manufacturers worldwide with the particular expertise needed to commercially make and fill environmentally-friendly HFA metered-dose inhalers.
to affect powerful change. So, while America searches for clean energy solutions, SouthCoast heads to sea.
Convergences off SouthCoast... create a renewable and sustainable energy resource that represents nearly 20 percent of the nation’s wind power resource. ‘MASSACHUSETTS NORTH SLOPE’ OF OFFSHORE WIND When the National Renewable Energy Lab first estimated U.S. wind resources in 2003, it reported a potential gross resource roughly equal to the total energy generating capacity of the existing national grid. That resource remains largely untapped still. Subsequent studies of prevailing winds in North America revealed that convergences off SouthCoast, south of the Elizabeth Islands chain, create a renewable and sustainable energy resource that represents nearly 20 percent of the nation’s wind power resource. Pair that factoid with stats citing the Eastern Seaboard as the nation’s most ravenous consumer of energy and the decision to harvest offshore wind off
SouthCoast’s ‘North Slope’ is simply a matter of supply-and-demand. Global companies like Cape Wind and the Fall River-based TPI Composites, a leading provider of wind turbine blades, are already ahead of the curve. Although the upfront costs of offshore wind are higher, windier conditions at sea produce more energy than onshore. Transmission costs are lower because offshore wind farms are typically deployed and maintained from nearby urban port centers.
MREC GOES WHERE NONE HAVE GONE BEFORE UMD’s New England Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC) is a consortium of universities and industry leaders developing technologies to capture ocean energy in the waves, currents, and winds off New England’s coast. When the ‘Creation Story’ of America’s marine renewable (aka ‘blue’) energy industry is told, MREC will be credited for its pioneering role in both marine hydrokinetic (wave and tidal energy or ‘MHK’) and offshore wind. In 2011, an MREC-led team successfully demonstrated tidal energy conversion technology (MHK) in Muskeget Channel between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket–the first ever ‘in-ocean hardware test’ of any ‘blue energy’ technology in U.S. history. MREC partnered with Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the Town of
SOUTHCOAST Edgartown, and two MA companies (tidal turbine manufacturer Free Flow Power and energy storage company FastCap Systems). An additional tidal energy test in Muskeget and a 2012 wave energy test in Nantucket will also utilize pilot-scale devices from MA companies.
‘SUPERSIZED SANDBOX’ FOR SCIENTISTS Since its inception in 2007—a nanosecond in ‘blue energy’ evolution in the U.S.—MREC has spearheaded efforts to establish an innovative ocean test bed site in federal waters south of Nantucket, called the Northeast Offshore Renewable Energy Innovation Zone (NOREIZ). The only site like NOREIZ worldwide lies among Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Through a partnership between MREC and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, the Commonwealth is seeking a formal research lease with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. What appears to be a ‘supersized sandbox’ for scientists to play in, NOREIZ is really a clever tool for luring innovators to SouthCoast’s waters—companies get to demonstrate that their smartest ‘blue energy’ technology works as well in the ocean as it did in the test tank on land, and SouthCoast gets to grow its economy.
OFFSHORE WIND A GAME-CHANGER When Cape Wind selected the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal as its staging and deployment port for America’s first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, its decision positioned SouthCoast as the hub of
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offshore wind energy development along the Atlantic Coast. The challenges of offshore wind energy development are many— developing infrastructure to support the offshore industry, procuring vessels for installation, port/harbor infrastructure upgrades, turbine manufacturing facility construction, and workforce training–and the waters are uncharted. As offshore wind activity in SouthCoast moves forward, planning for the construction phase prompted decision-makers to head to Europe, where decades of experience could guide planning for substations, distribution cables, onshore staging areas, and more.
THE CUXHAVEN CONNECTION To learn from offshore wind projects ‘across the pond’ in Europe, a SouthCoast delegation visited Cuxhaven. Headquarters for Germany’s prosperous fishprocessing industry, one of its largest commercial fishing ports, a shipping and shipbuilding center at the mouth of the Elbe, as well as a popular North Sea beach resort, Cuxhaven bet on German technology to guide development of its offshore energy sector. That bet paid off—and triggered an economic turnaround. Within five years of Cuxhaven’s commitment to a massive offshore wind energy project, the creation of some 1,500 jobs has been realized, with the prospect for thousands more by 2015. Throughout Europe, offshore wind is established and growing fast. There exists a dozen offshore wind farms, and nine European countries have pledged to build a giant offshore wind grid. The European Wind Energy
Association expects offshore wind to eventually provide 10 percent of Europe’s power.
A fair wind is blowing toward the SouthCoast, filling its economic sails to overflowing with opportunities for a new generation of clean energy innovators OFFSHORE WINDS = ONSHORE JOBS A fair wind is blowing toward the SouthCoast, filling its economic sails to overflowing with opportunities for a new generation of clean energy innovators who seek to harness the ocean’s power and a new breed of entrepreneur who seeks to profit from it. The US Department of Energy projects that an offshore wind industry could create 43,000 wind jobs across the U.S. by 2020 and generate $200 billion in economic activity.
BLUE ENERGY DÉJÀ VU It’s ironic that New Bedford, the ‘City that Lit the World’ with whale oil, the marine renewable energy resource of the 19th Century, is poised to lead America toward clean energy independence using 21st Century technology that harnesses the raw power of ocean waves, tides, and offshore winds – sustainable ‘blue energy’ resources—that unlike natural gas, petroleum and whale blubber, will never run out. For SouthCoast residents and visitors, it is easy to appreciate the innovation, opportunities, and beauty all around. A short jump from Boston, SouthCoast has it all. Q