Maryland Company Developing Gene Therapies To Treat Variety Of Childhood Genetic Diseases
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Gov. Larry Hogan was given a grand opening tour of Paragon Bioservices, a Maryland business that started small 30 years ago, and is expanding to 700 jobs in two huge buildings near BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The product -- gene therapy.
"It's a booming industry and we're just happy to be capturing a lot of it right here in Maryland," Hogan said.
Labs in other businesses are developing gene therapies to treat a variety of diseases.
Paragon scales up the discoveries.
"We're working with 22 or 23 of the top 30 or 40 gene therapy companies in the world. Really, they came here because of our science," said Pete Buzy, Paragon CEO.
What eventually goes out Paragon's door will be small enough to fit in vials.
"It's vials that will be going to a lot of kids," Buzy said. "A lot of kids are impacted by genetic diseases,"
As a company tour guide informed Hogan, "Debilitating disease and eventually death. To think you can stop that from happening and have that child grow up very normal, it's just a miracle. That's why we say we manufacture miracles here,"
A dream researchers have spent decades working on, with decades still to come- putting gene therapy development and manufacturing, on pace to double in size in the years ahead.
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