Biotech startups share space, services at Madison’s Forward Biolabs

Biotech startups share space, services at Madison’s Forward Biolabs

Tyler Nevels, right, assistant scientist with Empirico Inc., and Matt George, senior scientist with Vascugen Inc., work in biosafety hoods at Forward Biolabs, a biotech business incubator in Madison. Eleven startups share space and lab equipment at the facility, which opened a year ago. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Tyler Nevels, right, assistant scientist with Empirico Inc., and Matt George, senior scientist with Vascugen Inc., work in biosafety hoods at Forward Biolabs, a biotech business incubator in Madison. Eleven startups share space and lab equipment at the facility, which opened a year ago. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

After Tobias Zutz raised $900,000 for Gregor Diagnostics, his Madison startup developing a new test for prostate cancer, he didn’t want to spend a big chunk of the money on lab equipment right away.

He moved into Forward Biolabs, a biotech incubator at University Research Park on Madison’s West Side. At the nearly 10,000-square-foot facility, where users pay rent month to month, Zutz and his four employees share microscopes, biosafety hoods, plate readers, pipettes and office space with 10 other small companies.

“If we would have had to set up our own lab, it would have cost $200,000 or $250,000 to buy all the freezers and equipment,” Zutz said.

Another advantage of the incubator is a lack of isolation: “We’re not on this small island with just the five of us,” he said. “We get to interact with other people. It feels more like a community.”

Forward Biolabs opened in February 2019 at 504 South Rosa Road after starting in temporary space the previous September. The facility has one main goal, said CEO Jessica Martin Eckerly.

“The whole purpose is to minimize the hurdles to starting a biotech company in Wisconsin,” Eckerly said.

Forward Biolabs and BioFoward, along with UW-Madison’s Forward Bio Institute, are part of the Forward Bio Initiative, launched in 2018 to boost training, technology development and commercialization in biotech.

The effort was supported by a $750,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and $200,000 from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

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