Related story: Maryland’s business incubators ‘further along’ than many nationally

Many startups benefit from the resources that incubators offer at a time when access to capital is limited.

“[Incubators] have access to a tremendous amount of resources to advice and counsel that can help open doors to allow businesses to overcome hurdles they would otherwise face on their own, without them having to fumble around by themselves,” said Clay Hickson, vice president of the Maryland Business Incubation Association and director of the TowsonGlobal incubator.

Those resources may include wet labs, which provide specialized ventilation and plumbing for scientific research and would normally cost businesses about $1.5 million, said Michael Dailey, executive director of the Frederick Innovation Technology Center incubator, which offers 12 wet labs.

“No startup can put $1.5 million in capital in that space,” Dailey said.

George Zhu, vice president of GM Biosciences, said the Frederick wet labs provide his startup with necessities such as a freezer, a polymerase chain reaction machine for molecular biology and a water purifier.

“It helps us save money at the start,” he said. “Without the incubator, I can’t imagine how our company can grow.”

GM Biosciences, which develops products to strip antibodies, has doubled its revenues each year since joining the incubator program in 2007. The company started as a virtual client, receiving only counseling services before moving in last year.

“The incubation is very critical and helpful,” said Peter Pushko, founder of Medigen, another Frederick client. “I am a scientist and do not have business experience. They help with that and even provide the necessary paperwork for business negotiations.”

Medigen, which has incubated for two years, researches cancer and infectious disease vaccines, and has developed a therapy for prostate cancer for the National Cancer Institute.

Pushko said access to the incubator’s lab and office space also helped him bring on additional workers — he now has four — and give clients a chance to see his active lab work.

Twenty-six percent of Frederick’s graduates are among Frederick County’s 76 biotechs, Dailey said. Most companies incubate for one to three years, he said. The Frederick incubator has had 30 clients to date.

Two of Montgomery County’s facilities also offer wet lab space, totaling 35 wet labs and four Class 100 “clean rooms” to control contamination during manufacturing or research. The incubators also provide 80 to 100 training programs, said John Korpela, who manages the county’s incubator program.

Keygene, a Netherlands agricultural company with its U.S. office at the Rockville Innovation Center, developed its U.S. business plan and expanded into the U.S. market with help from the incubator, said An Michiels, CEO of Keygene’s U.S. division.

The support “goes from the coffee machine to the printer to the excellent receptionist that helps host meetings,” she said.

Keygene has 10 employees and has incubated for four years. The company also benefits from the incubator’s ties with the nearby Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research run through the University of Maryland, Michiels said.

She said Keygene hopes to stay in Maryland after it outgrows the incubator.

More than 2,000 jobs have been created through the Montgomery County incubator programs, with the current 142 clients accounting for $36 million in payrolls, Korpela said. This includes 42 biotechs. Incubation stays tend to range up to three years for information technology startups and up to five years for biotechs. Most graduations come about through investments, mergers or acquisitions, he said.

Get Real is among Montgomery County’s successful graduates, with the company “on the cusp of being extremely successful,” said President Robin Wiener.

Having used its time in a Rockville incubator to shift from professional services to product sales, Get Real, still in Rockville, has signed with Microsoft to resell throughout the world and signed with Canadian Telus. The company, which provides a set of various configurable widgets and trackers for interactive health graphs and care plans, also expects another major deal soon.

“[The incubator] gave us a way to get out of our homes and into an established space,” Wiener said. “We received a nice foundation from the incubator.”

She also praised the incubator’s legal resources, adding that Get Real has tapped those resources again since its graduation.

lrobbins@gazette.net