At Maryland’s recent Insights to Impact event, the conversation was not just about startups, science, or even funding. It was about infrastructure — the less visible but essential scaffolding that determines whether innovation ecosystems thrive or stagnate.
When Karen Zuccardi of TEDCO described the state’s innovation landscape as a garden, she framed the moment clearly. TEDCO, she said, has long been “watering the flowers” — investing directly into promising companies. But through its Equity Growth Fund (EGF), the organization is now “working underneath the surface,” strengthening the soil itself.
That distinction matters.
While early-stage capital fuels individual companies, infrastructure funding builds the systems that allow entire ecosystems to scale. The Equity Growth Fund is designed to support workforce and infrastructure projects that increase Maryland’s long-term economic competitiveness and foster equitable growth across regions and sectors .
At the event, three Equity Growth Fund recipients — Rise Therapeutics, Xcellon Biologics, and BioBuzz — illustrated what that shift looks like in practice.
Rise Therapeutics: Building GMP Infrastructure for a New Class of Oral Immunotherapies
Rockville-based Rise Therapeutics is advancing a novel approach to immunotherapy: engineering probiotic cells to deliver biologic drugs orally through the intestinal immune system. Founder and CEO Gary Fanger, PhD, described how the company has moved from early preclinical work to three clinical-stage programs in rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and cancer .
But the company’s scientific progress is only part of the story.
Rise has built its own GMP manufacturing capabilities in Maryland — a strategic decision that allows it to control development timelines and reduce reliance on external facilities . According to Karen Zuccardi, there are only a limited number of comparable facilities globally, with most located outside the United States .
That scarcity creates both risk and opportunity.
Through the Equity Growth Fund, Rise plans to expand and refine its manufacturing infrastructure to support progression from Phase 1 into Phase 2 and eventually commercial-scale production . The funding will support expanded cleanroom space, quality systems, and process validation — the often-overlooked but critical components required to scale advanced therapies.
Importantly, Rise’s infrastructure does not serve only its internal pipeline. The company has developed a CDMO arm that provides manufacturing and development services to other emerging biotech firms . That creates a multiplier effect: infrastructure built for one innovator becomes capacity for many.
The result is more than drug development progress. It is job creation — approximately 30 high-paying roles — and the retention of advanced manufacturing capability within Maryland .
This is what ecosystem strengthening looks like: enabling companies not only to innovate but to manufacture locally.
Xcellon Biologics: Creating an “Easy Button” for Emerging Biotech
If Rise represents vertically integrated therapeutic innovation, Xcellon Biologics represents a complementary layer: development and manufacturing services for early-stage biologics companies.
Founded in 2020 and based in Rockville, Xcellon positions itself as a collaborative CDMO partner for startups that may not yet have access to global manufacturing giants . CEO Yuk Chu explained that many young biotech companies struggle not because of weak science, but due to technical and CMC execution barriers .
Xcellon’s strategy is to remove those barriers.
The company provides early development services spanning in vitro testing, process and analytical development, and formulation — with particular focus on complex biologics such as antibody-drug conjugates and bispecifics .
With support from the Equity Growth Fund, Xcellon is accelerating the buildout of its first GMP facility . The grant will fund bioreactors, purification and filtration systems, and digital infrastructure such as electronic batch records and documentation management systems.
That digital backbone may prove just as important as the steel and glass.
Modern biologics development increasingly depends on data integrity, compliance, and scalable documentation systems. By embedding those systems from the start, Xcellon aims to provide Maryland-based startups with a faster pathway to IND-enabling and clinical-stage readiness.
The broader impact extends into workforce development. Chu emphasized hiring, training, and retaining Maryland talent — including career-switchers and interns gaining hands-on GMP experience. In a region competing with Boston and California for technical expertise, in-state training pipelines are strategic assets.
Here again, the Equity Growth Fund is catalyzing shared infrastructure rather than one-off outcomes.
BioBuzz and the Visibility Layer of Ecosystem Infrastructure
Infrastructure is not limited to wet labs and cleanrooms.
BioBuzz, also an Equity Growth Fund recipient, is positioning itself as connective infrastructure for the BioHealth Capital Region. At the event, Chris Frew described BioBuzz’s focus on storytelling, community-building, and talent mobilization.
Through the TEDCO funded MOORE Bio initiative (Mobilizing Opportunity and Outreach for Regional Excellence) launched with the founding support from ETC Baltimore, Kymanox and BluZone Bio, BioBuzz aims to simultaneously strengthen workforce pipelines and Maryland’s visibility as a Biohub. The program blends media amplification, career exploration through a student fellowships and ambassador program, and a digital platform designed to connect employers with emerging talent through provide AI-powered career pathways a skills verification engine and talent marketplace approach.
The uniqueness of this program is the student-industry engagement program in which students, 70% of whom will come from underrepresented communities, participate in career exploration exercises by engaging with Maryland-based employers. They then leverage the BioBuzz platform to write and share stories about the people, jobs, companies and innovations that they learn about.
This student-driven approach aims to activate these students and their networks with stories that engage and attract more talent into the field. Sneha Saggurthi, a local Quality Manager at Cartesian Therapeutics and adjunct instructor at Frederick Community College, will be the Engagement Lead for BioBuzz in a consulting capacity to help oversee the program and ensure it aligns with industry priorities.
BioBuzz is now working with local biopharma companies who want to participate as a coalition-style partnership through this initiative and be part of this new program that will help local companies to elevate their employer brand, attract talent to their companies and build a stronger and more diverse talent pipeline for their jobs.
If Rise and Xcellon represent physical infrastructure, BioBuzz represents connectivity and ecosystem infrastructure — essential for attracting capital, talent, and national recognition.
In global competition, brand matters.
Why the Equity Growth Fund Signals a Strategic Shift
Maryland has long produced high-caliber science, IP, and early-stage startups. But retaining and scaling those companies has historically been more challenging, with firms often migrating to established hubs for capital access and manufacturing capacity.
The Equity Growth Fund reflects an intentional response to that gap.
By targeting infrastructure and workforce projects that strengthen economic competitiveness and equitable opportunity , TEDCO is addressing the structural reasons companies leave — limited GMP capacity, fragmented workforce pipelines, and insufficient ecosystem visibility.
The stated ambition is clear: by 2040, Maryland aims to be globally recognized as a hub for innovation .
Recognition does not come from press releases alone. It comes from:
- Clinical-stage companies manufacturing locally
- Startups accessing GMP facilities without leaving the state
- Talent pipelines aligned to industry demand
- Service providers scaling alongside innovators
Infrastructure makes those outcomes possible.
The Ecosystem Beneath the Surface
At first glance, a GMP expansion or a digital batch record system may seem incremental. But ecosystems are built incrementally.
When a therapeutics company can move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 manufacturing without crossing state lines, timelines compress. When an early-stage founder can access collaborative CDMO support locally, risk decreases. When students see visible pathways into biotech careers, retention improves.
That is the soil Karen Zuccardi referenced — the foundation beneath the visible growth .
Maryland’s life sciences sector already has the flowers: world-class research institutions, federal proximity, experienced operators, and emerging innovators. The Equity Growth Fund suggests the state is now investing deliberately in the root system.
And in a global biotech race defined by speed, scale, and supply chain control, roots may be what ultimately determine who grows tallest.
