PDS Biotechnology Corp., a firm got its start at the University of Cincinnati’s biotech incubator, is relocating to Ivy Tech’s Lakefront Campus on Industrial Drive in Lawrenceburg.

The firm secured a $2 million grant from Indiana’s 21st Century Fund that required relocation to the Hoosier state. Proximity to Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Louisville as well as Indiana University, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Kentucky were key factors in the location decision. So was the available lab space at Ivy Tech.

Ivy Tech Chancellor Jim Helms said the move is the beginning of an era for the Ivy Tech facility becoming a medical research incubator as well as possible new degree programs to complement PDS and the biotech industry in the future.

The company has five employees and expects to grow to 100 over the next four to eight years. The firm is awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval for the next step in developing Versamune-HPV, a vaccine cure for human papillomavirus related cancers, and in treating and curing melanoma. The company said animal and human cell trials have been successfully demonstrated.

The relocation of PDS was an example of a lot of people working together. Ivy Tech Chancellor Helms made acknowledgements in his announcement news release – City of Lawrenceburg and Mayor Bill Cunningham and City Manager Tom Steidel; Dearborn County Economic Development Initiative (by the way, Jim Helms is this year’s chairman); Doug Moorman of the Cincinnati USA Partnership; Ivy Tech Community College President Tom Snyder and Susan Brooks, Ivy Tech statewide legal counsel and head of the college Workforce and Economic Development.

The move comes as Indiana and Dearborn County step up efforts to recruit biotech firms and capitalize on the state’s strengths and momentum. Cutting-edge research at Purdue University and Eli Lily has helped Indiana build a reputation and encourage the start up and attract the relocation of some 1,500 companies in the fast-growing field.

Michael Rozow, chief operating office or the Dearborn County Economic Development Initiative and president of the Dearborn County Chamber of Commerce, joined 15 other Hoosiers as part of the state’s contingent to the 2009 International Convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Atlanta May 19-21. Indiana’s participation was coordinated by Mitch Roob, president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Nearly 15,000 industry leaders from 58 countries and 48 states were on hand for what is the largest annual conference in the field.

Click the link below to read the Dearborn County Register's May 21 news report on the PDS Biotechnology relocation.