Kalexsyn, Inc: your science deserves the best scientists

News and Events Press Releases

Contract chemistry firm continues expansion

Tuesday, December 7, 2004
ajones@kalamazoogazette.com
(269) 388-8556

A year-old biotech firm started by former Pharmacia Corp. scientists is trying to take advantage of an outsourcing trend by large pharmaceutical companies and is expanding rapidly. Kalexsyn Inc., which contracts to provide drug companies and others with medicinal chemistry services for the early phases of the drug-discovery process, announced this morning it has completed phase three of expansion and is entering phase four at the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center. The young company has grown from a two-person operation -- former Pharmacia scientists Robert Gadwood and David Zimmermann -- to 19 people, 11 of whom are also former Pharmacia chemists. Kalexsyn started building laboratory space at the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center last March with $192,000 in start-up funds from the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor (now the Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor) and $225,000 from Western Michigan University's Biosciences Research and Commercialization Center. The company benefited from $2.9 million worth of laboratory equipment from Pfizer Inc., which was valued at more than $14 million in terms of what Kalexsyn would have otherwise had to pay. The equipment was gifted to WMU and then made available for the company's use. Since then, Gadwood and Zimmerman have built their roster of customers, requiring an expansion from 2,500 square feet of space to 6,000 at the Innovation Center, the $12 million, 58,000-square-foot bioscience-business incubator that was opened in Western Michigan University's Business Technology and Research Park in Oshtemo Township 17 months ago. "Contract-research organizations are a cost-effective way to speed the development process," Doug Morton, chief executive officer of the Innovation Center, said in a press release. Gadwood, who is president and chief operating officer of Kalexsyn, said his company hopes to grow its roster of clients from 41. The clients may already be fully staffed with chemists, but "outsourcing allows them to scale the work up or down without affecting headcount," Gadwood said. Barry Broome, chief executive officer of area economic-development organization Southwest Michigan First, said Kalexsyn is the fastest-growing among 14 start-ups at the Innovation Center.