Deb Mosca may not be in the shark tank, but she is finding herself in the company of some pretty big fish.

Mosca, CEO of the Wilmington-based Marine Bio-Technologies Center of Innovation (MBCOI), is casting her net wide in the center’s mission to find commercial applications for an array of marine-based technologies, and then to match researchers and developers with companies that can bring those products to market. 

The ultimate goal, she says, is to use marine-based technology – an important segment of the life sciences sector – to boost economic development and create jobs in
North Carolina.

Gov. Pat McCrory acknowledged recently that the state’s life science community is essential to innovation and economic growth.

“One of great things your industry has done is help us get out of this recession,” he told more than 400 people at the kickoff of the CED Life Science Conference in Raleigh earlier this month, according to a N.C. Biotechnology Center article. Citing figures compiled by Battelle Technology Partnership Practice the day before the conference, McCrory said the state is now “in the top 20 in [life science] employment.

Panelists at a Wilmington life sciences conference in late February discussed resources available to translate research to commercial applications and pointed to federal and state grant support available to get startups in the swim.

John Ujvari, of the N.C. Small Business and Technology Development Center, said there
has been a five-fold increase in applications from North Carolina companies for federal Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer grants. State matching grants are available to those programs’ grantees as well.

MBCOI aims to be a nexus for all things marine biotech in North Carolina. Thus far the young organization, which incorporated in mid-2012 as one of North Carolina’s centers of innovation, has landed two major services contracts. Mosca’s efforts, working with Randall Johnson, executive director of the N.C. Biotechnology Center’s southeastern office, have also lured the BioMarine Business Convention, which will hold its sixth annual international gathering in Wilmington in October.

“That meeting is a collection of top executives from research, industry and governments who are able to make decisions on where they want to take a particular project,” Mosca said. “They can execute deals. Last year when the convention was held in Cascais, Portugal, there were almost €55M in deals as a result of that meeting. Every year that figure increases.”

About 300,000 people watched the live streams of the BioMarine sessions, she added.
MBCOI concentrated its early efforts on identifying potential players and resources within the state.

“Our first year we identified what exists in North Carolina,” she said. “There was no comprehensive set of information across multiple universities plus small and larger companies. We literally pulled together all the information we could from public sources … for anybody to use.”

Then, knowing what research and technologies existed, MBCOI was in a position to brainstorm possible commercial applications for those lab-generated ideas. Mosca has credited Roy Carter, MBCOI’s director of development, for his creativity in identifying possible applications. He can enlarge the applications of particular technologies, she said.

One example is a test used to assess the health of fish in an aquaculture environment. Used on an oyster, for example, it can show how well the mollusk is metabolizing whatever washes into its bivalve home. This test could possibly be used on plants in a field.

“This could be helpful with plants in terms of herbicide and insecticide tolerance,” she said. “We have a partnership agreement with the principals of that equipment to bring in other interested parties. MBCOI will be the facilitator.”

Once the inventory and ideas for commercial applications became available, Mosca began touting the state’s capabilities to companies worldwide, matching ideas to needs and forging partnerships that, while they might not involve North Carolina entities only, would ultimately benefit the state economically.

MBCOI, then, was ideally positioned when Johnson forwarded a request from a U.K. Fortune 500 company. The company asked how it might find certain marine biotech resources in North Carolina. Mosca knew just what entity in the state to recommend, and the result was a large contract to inventory the specified resources.

“That is an opportunity to build relationships with international companies that we can grow into substantial partnerships to attract more activity here from those companies,” Johnson said. “All of this effort is about long-term, multi-layered economic development. It’s important to attract large companies here and just as important to build relationships with smaller ventures, which might start with smaller investments and employment but which can lead to substantial local job growth and sizeable additional investments over time.”

The center has reeled in another contract as well: it tapped an intellectual property law firm in the state to help a company that had requested a valuation of its technology.

These service contracts certainly aren’t the MBCOI’s main area of focus, but they bring in revenue and help establish the center as a hub of marine biotechnology activity, Mosca said. Revenue is important, as MBCOI seeks to become self-supporting over the course of several years. Its funding at present comes through N.C. Biotechnology Center.

One part of the marine economic landscape on which MBCOI could have substantial impact is aquaculture, Mosca said. She noted that estimates show the world will face a protein shortage by 2050, and that since cultivation of beef, pork and poultry requires high levels of energy and results in a substantial carbon footprint, seafood is a better choice, environmentally. But supplies in the wild are limited.

“Right now the U.S. imports 90 percent of its seafood, mostly from Asia,” Mosca said. “When those countries start realizing they have to feed their own people, we may be faced with a significant shortage. Becoming more self-sufficient, like we have with energy, is the answer.”

The potential for a large aquaculture industry in North Carolina is there, she said, but right now, the state’s roughly 300 aquaculture farms are small and not well networked. In tandem with the N.C. Biotechnology Center, MBCOI has studied the how best to expand the state’s aquaculture industry.

That effort identified the top three or four fish for farming, the potential markets for each – with a total market estimated at $57 million – and the expertise available.

“We’re basically set up with a blueprint now, and we’re looking for an economic development grant, rather than venture capital” to carry out the plan, Mosca said.
Aquaculture isn’t limited to just growing fish in a pond, Johnson said.

“Opportunities that exist for aquaculture are diverse: fish feed, using waste that comes from the processing facility for such things as oils for cosmetics and food for algae, which can be used for a whole range of products,” he said. “You can tie together these various revenue streams, and it’s a boost to rural areas in addition to the health
benefits of seafood and the supply of food to feed a growing population.”

Mosca and Johnson are confident that, at the BioMarine Business Convention in October, attendees from other countries will see a promising and connected marine biotech community in the region that is ready for growth and equal to the task of creating solutions to a whole range of problems.

Currently, Mosca and Johnson have the support of local officials and are talking with potential sponsors and donors to help underwrite the cost of bringing BioMarine to town. Companies and organizations that help MCBOI lure those big fish could generate economic benefits for whole schools of smaller fish throughout North Carolina.