Saturday, July 11, 2009

Disposable income

The Chancellor's extended notes (pdf) suggest that ex-President Murano was not on board with the plans the NCTM. An example of her "Active opposition to System" includes:
Pankratz (or CFO) - [Eco info on Xoma - W???? Paper]
- * Real numbers on NCTM, [Elsa ??ed for CEO meeting & really no explanation or understanding & NO Request for info PRIOR ("I gotcha...
There is also another reference to the 3rd "W????" Paper over bullets for Xoma and GLP/GMP.

As explained in our Vice Chancellor for eHarmony's presentation to BioHouston, the NCTM will be an academically-owned, privately-operated GMP manufacturing facility for biological therapeutics. It will be the international leader and regulatory benchmark for flexible, disposable manufacturing technologies.

Vision 1920 does not understand why Murano was standing in the way of TAMUS becoming an international leader. Perhaps she was concerned about initial costs
The decision to be GMP compliant can add considerable expense to a project and should be carefully considered. Process engineering is one aspect that frequently has unexpected higher costs, especially in an institutional setting. Increased requirements for specialized consulting, validation, detailed documentation, and process engineering can increase capital expenses as much as 25 to 30 percent.
Maybe she was worried about operating costs
Once the facility is built, the hard part begins. In addition to maintaining the ongoing validation of all processes, the facility must maintain a full-time quality control and quality assurance staff to support that operation. There will also be a heightened need to market the facility and maximize its use in order to recover the significant added costs.
GMP facilities generally have operating budgets on the order of just a couple million per year. Maybe she was worried about whether income would offset the costs:
“I can’t stress enough the importance of getting out there and promoting these facilities because they don’t run on their own. It’s great to have one or two researchers with projects going but you have to find a lot more support within your university and healthcare network to feed this type of lab,” says Orton.
But that's not a problem, since, as Dr. Giroir points out, the NCTM can
Service new start biotechs particularly those spawned by ETF and CPRIT.
All we have to do is have the State make sure ETF money only goes to companies that promise to use TAMUS facilities. No problem!

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