What’s the Buzz?! Maryland Life Sciences w⧸ Dr. Stefanie Trop

This week, Chris Frew, CEO of BioBuzz Networks, sat down for an interview with Dr. Stefanie Trop, Director of Life Sciences at the Maryland Department of Commerce. Their conversation delved into Dr. Trop’s current role, her professional journey and the initiatives driving growth in the life sciences sector across Maryland.

April 19, 2024

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During the interview, Dr. Trop shared insights into her professional journey, beginning with her Ph.D. studies in microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Trop’s academic pursuits focused on addressing public health challenges, particularly in malaria and cellular immunology research. Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Trop transitioned into a postdoctoral role at the Naval Medical Research Center, where she gained valuable experience in clinical trials and applied research in military medicine.

Dr. Trop underscored the diverse opportunities within Maryland’s vibrant life sciences industry, leveraging its concentration of federal research institutions and thriving biotechnology sector. She elaborated on her own career trajectory as a testament to the varied pathways available to researchers, spanning academia, government agencies, and private contractors.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Trop emphasized the pivotal role of the Maryland Department of Commerce in driving economic development and fostering innovation across the state. Notable initiatives such as the Biotechnology Investment Incentive Tax Credit (BITSY) were discussed, highlighting strategies to incentivize private investment in biotech startups. Dr. Trop also highlighted collaborative partnerships with organizations like TEDCO (Technology Development Corporation) and the Maryland Tech Council, essential for funding entrepreneurship and facilitating technology transfer.

Overall, the interview provided valuable insights into Dr. Trop’s journey, the dynamic landscape of Maryland’s life sciences industry, and collaborative efforts aimed at advancing innovation and economic prosperity under her leadership.

Learn more about the conversation in this week’s recording and transcript:

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Chris Frew [00:00:00]:
Good afternoon, everybody. This is Chris Frew with BioBuzz. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. I’m excited to come live again today with another. What’s the buzz? Our segments where we interview people from across the region and from our community who are doing impactful things and making impact and building community, building commerce, getting jobs and just generally making an impact today. Very excited to welcome someone who I’ve gotten an opportunity to know very well, Stefanie Trop, who is the new director of life sciences at the Maryland Department of Commerce. Welcome, Stefanie.

Stefanie Trop [00:00:39]:
Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Chris Frew [00:00:42]:
My pleasure. Now you’re somewhat new to this role, but you’ve been at the Department of Commerce for a while now. Two and a half years, right?

Stefanie Trop [00:00:50]:
Yeah, almost two and a half years. But I think in, in relation to how long people stay in this business and learn and grow, not long at all. It still feels like I started yesterday and there’s always so much to learn every day, which is something that I love about this so much. So two and a half years, but I still feel really new, still enjoying it very much.

Chris Frew [00:01:11]:
Well, that’s good. I mean, if the enjoyments there and things feel new, I’m sure that makes it exciting to get up every day and tackle what’s coming down the pipe.

Stefanie Trop [00:01:21]:
Yeah, it is. It’s a lot of fun.

Chris Frew [00:01:24]:
Well, you have a great team. We’ve gotten to know your team very well as well. So I know you all like to have fun and you do a lot. There’s a, you know, I’m always amazed at how many different initiatives you have going on. So, you know, I think to start off today, let’s start off with just a minute or a couple minutes about you. I’d love for you to tell the audience a little bit, kind of your journey. I mean, how did you get to the Department of Commerce two and a half years ago? I saw you were doing some work in flow cytometry and data scientist. How does one jump from that to a career in commerce?

Stefanie Trop [00:01:58]:
Sure. Yeah. And first, Chris, thanks for having me. I’m really happy to have this opportunity to speak with you and anyone who’s listening today or later. And thanks for doing this in general.

Chris Frew [00:02:08]:
Right.

Stefanie Trop [00:02:08]:
For being such an advocate and proponent and a catalyst in our ecosystem and other ecosystems, too. Speaking about someone who does a lot of stuff, you’re not just here in Maryland, but you’re really all over the place. So thanks for that. So I came to commerce two and a half years ago through what I guess seems like a path of jumping around, but to me, it has made sense. So I did my ph. I came down to Maryland. That’s when I became a Marylander for grad school to do my PhD at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in microbiology and immunology. And that’s kind of a good demonstration of just choosing that program of what I’m interested in, which is a lot of different things.

Stefanie Trop [00:02:51]:
I like science and bench science, but most of those academic research programs really just have you at the bench, you know, hunkering down into basic science. But I wanted to have a more integrative approach and do the science, but really in the context of important public health problems. So I did work my research there at school, public health, on malaria, cellular immunology, and then I stayed in Maryland when I found a job at the Naval Medical Research center as a postdoc, which I would love to have the opportunity to talk about that more now or later, because it’s something that we do at commerce, is help workforce development connect trainees to opportunities. And that wasn’t an opportunity that I knew about until I was really in the weeds applying for jobs. I had no idea that I could do something like that here, like work for the Navy, doing clinical trials. So that’s what I did in my postdoc here in Silver Spring, where I live now, that brought me down here.

Chris Frew [00:03:56]:
Something unique about Maryland, too, is the government. There’s a lot of federal institutes right here. So if you go to school here, you know, your postdoc isn’t just in a medical center or research center. There’s really a lot. A lot more opportunity, you know, for. For what you do. Postgraduate.

Stefanie Trop [00:04:15]:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great point. I just wonder how far I have to be from the camera. So this doesn’t. It’ll turn my camera off for a second. Okay. There, there. Yeah.

Stefanie Trop [00:04:26]:
So I’ll say PhD programs. Postdoc programs are really evolving. Okay. All right. I think to bring in opportunities and education awareness beyond what, consider the traditional routes, staying in academic research. So we have lots of big industry here of life sciences companies. We could take on a number of different roles as a doctoral scientist or master’s level graduate in the industry or with federal government or in the case of. What I did is I worked for a contractor, Henry Jackson foundation, which is also headquartered here in Maryland.

Stefanie Trop [00:05:15]:
It’s a nonprofit. Their mission is to advance military medicine. I worked at the Naval Medical Research center through the Henry Jackson Foundation. I’m really not trying to move. Okay.

Chris Frew [00:05:30]:
Sometimes we can’t help technology, so we just gotta barrel through.

Stefanie Trop [00:05:33]:
Yeah. Right. So going to work there at the Navy was just a super cool experience. Really different than doing lab research at Hopkins. And it was kind of a nice hybrid environment of, like, basic research and translational research, because we were doing product development, developing vaccines and testing vaccines, and doing actually challenge trials, I think was always interest something that interests people when I talk to them then or now, is that what I worked on for the Navy was enterotoxigenic E. Coli, which is a leading cause of travelers diarrhea. And when you bring up in conversation with people that you work on diarrhea, everyone just, you know, it lightens the room, and people love to share with you their favorite diarrhea story.

Chris Frew [00:06:20]:
I love that. Great.

Stefanie Trop [00:06:23]:
Yeah. So, really cool opportunity. Check out the Henry Jackson foundation, and there’s other similar organizations you can get into these agencies. There. I was doing immunology, just working with a ton of data, and I got really interested in aggregating and drawing insights from data, because unlike in your PhD, where you’re very often kind of in your own silo, creating your data, analyzing that, and making a story from that when you’re working on a clinical trial team, I generated data, but I also got to work with the data that was generated by technicians in the lab. Right. And the clinicians and the epidemiologists. So I got to integrate that and try to make stories, and that’s when I really got into data and learned to program.

Stefanie Trop [00:07:09]:
So did that here. And then with that really newfound love of data analysis, I got a job as a data scientist for a startup, which was based in Silicon Valley called Cytobank, and that they’re acquired, so they no longer exist. But the product is also named Cytobank. So any of your viewers who are doing a lot of single cell data analysis might be familiar with it. It’s now part of Beckman culture life Sciences, so worked as a data scientist there, and my role is doing programming. I was supporting our customers, who are scientists, using our software for data analysis to help build custom data analysis pipelines, do data analysis consulting, and I was also doing a lot of customer support and technical support for the software. So in that role, I was expanding my reach even more to support science and support biomedical advances because I got to work with different biotech companies and pharma companies and universities, and I got to learn so much. And, like, you started talking about having an impact, I felt like I got to really have a much bigger impact there in helping scientists to get their work done.

Stefanie Trop [00:08:19]:
Every day. So that was really fun. And hopefully I’m drawing the line. It’s not jumping around going from immunology to data and customer service and impact. And then when I was there at Beckman Coulter, I kind of wanted more. I was, I was, they call it in big companies, an individual contributor. Yeah. And to try to get some more opportunities there, I started a master’s program at Hopkins, a master’s in biotechnology, entrepreneurship and enterprise.

Stefanie Trop [00:08:50]:
So I took a few classes there and learned about business. And then I saw this commerce position open up a couple of years ago, and I just thought it sounded so fun and it would be able, be able to, to just expand even more, learn more, help people more, and make an impact on our community and getting these biomedical advances out into the world. So here I am.

Chris Frew [00:09:15]:
As someone who’s been in the recruiting and talent acquisition field for 20 years, I followed that right along.

Stefanie Trop [00:09:21]:
All right.

Chris Frew [00:09:23]:
Too often, people look at job titles alone and they don’t understand the story behind it and the motivation behind it. But you clearly followed a path around what your interests were and also, like you said, impact. That impact kind of grew along the way, I guess, continuing the impact of our conversation two and a half years at commerce, like you said, it’s so much that you’re working on and continues to change. And I love tell our users what’s commerce’s role in the life sciences ecosystem? Because we’ll get that. Sometimes we’ll hear from someone like, who should I reach out to for this? And so maybe you could take some time and tell us a little bit about what’s commerce’s role? What are you and your team focused on every day? And I think that’d be good to share with our audience.

Stefanie Trop [00:10:16]:
Yeah, I’d be glad to. Thanks, Chris. And before I knew about this role, I don’t even know know how I, why I was subscribed to the commerce, the life Sciences newsletter that I now manage. But that’s why I found out about the job. So I didn’t know what commerce was before. But is it is the state’s economic development agency, and there’s a lot of different types of economic development agencies and organizations, but we’re the public agency for the state, and our role is to grow business. So help the businesses that are here grow, help attract businesses and create jobs. That’s the overall focus, commerce.

Stefanie Trop [00:10:51]:
And throughout the organization, throughout the agency, we have a lot of different tools that we can use to accomplish that and a lot of teams that have different focuses. And actually, my colleague Matt Cimino and other colleagues at Commerce, Ivy Gales and Allison Redpath, they did a really great webinar last week with our partner, the Maryland Tech Council, where they did a really deep dive into how commerce is organized and how to go to. For what. So that great point of reference. Share that link available.

Chris Frew [00:11:23]:
Share the link. Yeah.

Stefanie Trop [00:11:24]:
Yeah. So in our office, life sciences, we sit in the office of Strategic Industries and Entrepreneurship. And in our group, we have people who are specialized from their background, from our background, our experience in different industries that are really critical to Maryland’s economy. So life sciences is one, cybersecurity, manufacturing, aerospace. We’re also putting new emerging technologies on my colleague Kim Mensel, who runs cybersecurity. So AI machine learning is going into there under her. Her job is getting bigger and bigger. We’ve got someone else in Redpath dedicated to entrepreneurship.

Stefanie Trop [00:12:12]:
We’ve got a couple new positions, new people in our office that were, came on the last several weeks, my colleague Ben McLachlin in manufacturing and Ryan Powell in energy. And we have a vacant position right now that we’ll be looking to fill for agriculture. And I hope I didn’t miss anybody. Oh, also someone, someone, Sarah shepherd, she works, is devoted to education. She used to work for labor, so she’s kind of a good link between labor, commerce.

Chris Frew [00:12:46]:
That’s great. Well, those are a lot of the big industries in Maryland, and I think you and Kim will probably be working closely together because there’s a lot of AI and life sciences these days. Well, so in terms of, in terms of the focus you have, so you said creating jobs, growing business. You mentioned the Maryland Tech Council. What are some other partners in the state that you work with and to accomplish those jobs?

Stefanie Trop [00:13:18]:
Yeah. So a big one, maybe one of our biggest partners is Tedco, which is the state’s venture funding arm. And actually, way before my time, commerce was a lot bigger, and all the TEDCo programs were under commerce. And then TEDCO was created and took those programs with it. So we worked very closely with TEDCO, which is a quasi state agency, lots of interesting funding programs. And when you’re talking about new programs and priorities, they’re always very active in responding to, in piloting programs and responding to the needs of the ecosystem, in creating different training and funding programs to support different slices of our entrepreneurs in Maryland, whether it’s the rural business program or focusing on women or underrepresented founders or focusing on partnering with HBCUs. So TEDCo’s got a lot of fantastic programs and new ones coming out all the time.

Chris Frew [00:14:21]:
Another one I know is the tech transfer. So MiI, like, really working with our universities, commercialize what’s being researched on, which.

Stefanie Trop [00:14:31]:
Continues to be a major challenge. But I think that program has been just really impactful. The MII program. And then they just announced, Taiko just announced a new program a few days ago, Flip program, focused on working with the federal labs. And I’m really excited to see how we can be involved in that and learn more about it. It seems like it’s also will work to address a lot of challenges that we have in tech transfer and help us Maryland, to really benefit from the presence of these federal agencies that we have here that are creating technology.

Chris Frew [00:15:07]:
That’s great. Yeah. I mean, and so I’m sure you could probably be a great help having some experience with Henry Jackson foundation and working with some of the, you know, the federal programming. So, and I think that’s a great example he just brought up. And what I appreciate about you all and TeDCo is you’re really tied into kind of the heartbeat of what businesses need in our ecosystem. So these are all programs that are being tailored to the climate that Maryland has and to the geography that Maryland has. So whether it’s partnering with a TeDco who’s building funding programs built around, again, the industries and the communities and the demographics that are important to our industry. But you do a lot around, you do a lot around the industries in life sciences as well.

Chris Frew [00:16:00]:
I know you were very involved over the past year in med tech. So that’s another, that’s another kind of sub-industry within life sciences. I’m sure Ben’s involved with that from a manufacturing standpoint, too. But you’re very involved in the medtech industry, and that’s an industry that’s really starting to grow and build in Maryland.

Stefanie Trop [00:16:20]:
Mm hmm. Yeah. And thanks for, you know, being a part of that. Right. BioBuzz, given a lot of good media coverage, because I think what’s really important, I think what’s most important actually in everything that we do is that making sure that people know about it. Right. Otherwise it doesn’t matter if nobody knows that you did it right. So.

Chris Frew [00:16:43]:
Well. And I say, yeah, and we’re very happy to be help be a herald and promote these programs and initiatives. And I say that sometimes we’re too humble. Things happen, and we just, we’re like, all right, we don’t really celebrate those wins as much, but so we love helping to be helping to celebrate for you and celebrate with you. You know, I will give you a shout out for you. Worked with the Fisher School of Engineering just last week and several other partners and put on a fantastic medtech conference. And in fact, it was kind of like a sophomore event after, like, last year, the Department of Commerce was very integral in getting the med tech innovators showcase to do their roadshow here in Maryland, in Baltimore. That was, that was a big win.

Chris Frew [00:17:34]:
I know that was a big part of, you know, in big part because of the Department of Commerce and your work. So these are, these are, these are programming, but it’s the programming that kind of starts with understanding our community, understanding our needs, and then commerce. And you and your team kind of take action to help move some of these things forward.

Stefanie Trop [00:17:54]:
Yeah, exactly. That thing that describes, well, what we try to do day in and day out. And I think in this role, we’re in a unique position to be able to hear all of the experience of all the different people in our ecosystem and outside of it. You know, people so far seem to trust that they can tell us things, tell me things I know, and we want to, you know, have that, that open door so that we can get that feedback, so that we can, you know, properly prioritize and focus our efforts most impactfully. And I think that’s where the med tech focus came from. So Maryland has a, a long, prominent history, you know, being strong in biotech, but we also have a lot of med tech going on. And these efforts to recruit the med tech innovator program started years ago, pre pandemic, before I was at commerce. So when the events restarted up, when events started up again, I was involved in renewing that effort to bring medtech innovator here, but I didn’t start it.

Chris Frew [00:19:05]:
So, yeah, we, well, it’s a team effort and, you know, everything, I think I often say and remind everybody that economic development is a team sport. It takes a lot of, a lot of people who care about the community and the climate you’re in to continue to grow it. So. But we’re always, we’re grateful for the part you did play. It was a great event last year. I mean, we had hundreds of, of not thousand people coming through Maryland all celebrating med tech. And it was a great way for me, it was an aha moment at how big and how many med tech companies that were here that I’ve heard of here and there. But I never saw how big it was until last year.

Chris Frew [00:19:53]:
And since then, it’s been high on.

Stefanie Trop [00:19:55]:
My radar and how strong it is, too, and how competitive. We definitely are heavier on the early, young, small startup company size. We don’t have a lot of the larger global medtech companies here that you see in other hubs like in Minnesota or growing in Texas, but we are so strong at what we do. And Medtech innovator, for people who don’t know, is the world’s largest global medtech accelerator program, and it’s super competitive. And we had, I think, five Maryland companies, which is definitely disproportionate to the size of our state and our industry pitched last year, and I think we had six pitched this year and just a plug for, you know, what we do at commerce and the impact. So I think it was six of the six companies that Medtech Innovator selected to participate in their road tour, which was actually two weeks ago in DC. All six of them participated in commerce programs where we took them to the medtech conference last year or the year before. So none of them were strangers to us.

Stefanie Trop [00:21:17]:
We worked with all of them, and it’s an analysis I want to do, but I haven’t done yet. But it’s very clear to me that people who participate in one of our programs usually participate in a lot more and participate more in other programs in the ecosystem too. So come talk to us. We’ll make sure that we connect you to our resources that you might not be using, but also to other partners programs.

Chris Frew [00:21:50]:
Yeah. So hopefully, hopefully those watching today, don’t be a stranger. Stefanie is waiting for your email.

Stefanie Trop [00:21:56]:
That’s right.

Chris Frew [00:21:56]:
Or her team. So what are some of those programs? I’m familiar with some of them, but probably not. I’m probably not familiar with all of them. I mean, I know I hear about Bitsy a lot, but maybe you could tell us some of the programs that you have. I’m also familiar with you take a delegation to bio every year, so maybe you could spend some time, tell me some, tell about some of the programs that you have.

Stefanie Trop [00:22:19]:
And Chris, I don’t know about all of the commerce programs either. Nobody does. There’s so many, and everyone works with a subset of them, even the team that administers them. It’s not one person, one team doing all of them. They take a subset because there are so many. Some of the ones that are most relevant to our life sciences companies are, yes, definitely our signature program, Bitsy, the biotechnology investment incentive tax credit. And that’s, it’s a unique program. Other states have similar programs, but they’re not as valuable, not as lucrative as ours.

Stefanie Trop [00:23:00]:
So this really helps you to raise private investment because what it does is it gives your investor a portion of their investment back to them as a refund. It’s a refundable tax credit. Whether your investor is in Maryland or somewhere else in the country or the world, they can get that written off from the Maryland tax liability or get a check back. And that’s such a great proposition to offer to your investor because now they’re not waiting until however many years, 510 years, for a potential return from investing in you. They’re going to get some of that back right away, within the first year. And it’s a good chunk, too. It can vary from 33% up to 75%.

Chris Frew [00:23:39]:
Wow.

Stefanie Trop [00:23:40]:
Of their investment in your company.

Chris Frew [00:23:42]:
That’s incredible.

Stefanie Trop [00:23:44]:
It’s really valuable.

Chris Frew [00:23:45]:
Probably why I hear about it so much.

Stefanie Trop [00:23:48]:
Yeah. So I’m really glad that we can offer that to companies. And, you know, the companies that use that program, again, we see they’re the ones that will apply to join us on our delegations to conferences. So our life sciences team, we might vary our programming a little bit each year, but it seems like our core lately is going to the bio International convention in June and the Med tech conference, which is put on by Advem ed, which is in October. And we pay for companies to attend those conferences, and we have them apply so we can do an objective evaluation to figure out which companies that we want to take that year. And we try to spread the wealth around, too, and take different companies year to year. So that’s, I think, a really great benefit to our companies when we ask them their feedback, because I like using data and getting feedback and seeing what’s useful, what’s not, where do we need to be working on? So we take companies to conferences. Our international team at commerce helps companies to export.

Stefanie Trop [00:24:56]:
So they will take companies to international conferences, and they have, again, their set of conferences they attend regularly. But in life sciences lately it’s been bio Japan and Medica, which is in Germany for medical device specifically, and arab health, which is in the end of January or February, also med tech specific. And then besides taking you to conferences, the same grant that commerce uses to pay for companies to go, you can also actually use those funds for different export related activities, like if you want market research done in another market to see how you should approach entering the market there.

Chris Frew [00:25:46]:
So, I mean, I think to me, what stands out to me is you just talked about like two bookends of what’s really important to companies as they’re growing. One is investment to get the company going, but then the other is like commercialization and sales investment’s part of it, but you can’t grow a company without revenue. So commerce is involved in helping to get companies invested and then taking them to conferences to make sure that, and even internationally to make sure they can be in front of their customers or collaborators or as we know in life sciences, a lot of times there’s revenue through partnerships and things like that. So it sounds like that’s a big area for you as well. So that’s a good part of two bookends that are critical to the. The life science, again, the evolution of a life science company.

Stefanie Trop [00:26:41]:
Yeah. And stuff in between as well. So we’ve got different types of support for each stage of company growth. So when you’re growing, when you’re hiring, there’s incentives, tax credits for that, you know, over a certain number of jobs created. And then we have other sorts of financing programs depending on your needs and your goals. Right. There are state funded programs for traditional lending to, for low interest loans or help with loan guarantees, especially in life sciences. Biotech companies don’t have a lot of collateral to put up for a traditional loan.

Stefanie Trop [00:27:19]:
And also the repayment time will be much longer than you expect in other businesses. Right. It takes a long time to be in this pre revenue stage. So there are state programs that can help you to get those loans or give you low interest loans. And there’s other, plenty of other programs as well. They’re often geography specific or like population specific. Different programs for underrepresented business founders.

Chris Frew [00:27:49]:
Yeah. Well, that’s fantastic. Well, hopefully you get a slew of emails coming in to learn about the programs, but I can attest so from whether it’s early investment or growing in workforce or. We didn’t touch on it, but I know there’s some real estate and kind of support you do with the incubators. And then again the conferences, which again, I think bio is coming up in a month and a half, maybe early June.

Stefanie Trop [00:28:17]:
Yep, we’re taking 15 companies.

Chris Frew [00:28:19]:
All right. That’s gonna be exciting. Well, good. Well, while we have a couple minutes left, I’d love to hear about what you see as some. I’ll tee one up for you. I mean, you mentioned commerce taking people to Japan. I saw that Shimadzu just opened their R and D headquarters here in Maryland. That’s a big win for the state.

Chris Frew [00:28:44]:
I know there’s been some expansion announcements, recent fundings. Tell us a little bit about what has you excited about where life science industry is going in Maryland and maybe any, any recent wins or any recent things you want to just share with our audience?

Stefanie Trop [00:28:59]:
I think from all accounts that I’ve seen, it looks like we’re starting to come out of this lull, this dark period, you know, whatever creative, poetic names people have for it. We’ve been calling it a buzzkill, a buzz kill. Oh, yeah. We don’t like buzzkills. No. Data, I think, is showing that we’re turning up. Right. There’s been a lot of exciting investment and growth in our biotech and medtech companies announcing big raises in the first quarter.

Stefanie Trop [00:29:30]:
So I feel really optimistic, but I think that apart from more money coming in, I think the companies that have survived this time have learned to be really creative. Right. And to pivot and to refocus, re hone their goals. So they’re really emerging stronger and better equipped to really go full speed now as the markets and the resources come back. So I’m feeling really optimistic and all around, all across the board and all of our sectors. But, yeah, thanks for bringing up our med tech initiatives and thanks for being a part of that. Really excited to keep the momentum going around that med. Around Medtech.

Stefanie Trop [00:30:17]:
We’ve been doing meetups, getting our med tech executives together just to create, like, a special space for them to learn from each other, share resources, celebrate, and want to keep riding that momentum. So, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Frew [00:30:34]:
Our offices are located in the city garage science and technology park, which has some available lab space for those companies that you’re talking to that want to come. A lot of med tech there, but there’s also wet lab space. I think there’s three new suites that South Duval just developed there, and shear partners is leasing. So there’s space in Maryland to take advantage of all these great initiatives that Stefanie’s talking about.

Stefanie Trop [00:31:00]:
Yes. Super cool space. Really accessible. I much prefer going there, getting off 95 instead of going, you know, into the city.

Chris Frew [00:31:08]:
Well, I’ll tell you what we love about it. We tell people to come, and if they’re going to a meeting in Baltimore, I said, why don’t you just come and park at city garage? Yes. I was like, I’ll buy you a free coffee, and. And then you can Uber in. And I’ve done this several times. It costs less to Uber in from city garage to the. To the biopark and back than it does to actually park in downtown Baltimore. So.

Chris Frew [00:31:34]:
Plus, then I get to see somebody who’s coming to town, so it’s a win-win for me.

Stefanie Trop [00:31:38]:
Well, if I may follow that up, plugging your space and coming to visit you. So, as you mentioned, since I am new to this role as the director of life sciences. We will have a new role opening up, and it’s lots of fun. And since our office is in the inner harbor in Baltimore, we have to park. If you drive, and very, very cheap parking. It’s cheaper for me. I pay less a month to park there than I would pay to park for an hour. So if you want good parking in Baltimore, we can.

Stefanie Trop [00:32:12]:
We can get you that at commerce.

Chris Frew [00:32:15]:
I love it.

Stefanie Trop [00:32:16]:
Yeah.

Chris Frew [00:32:17]:
Benefits sell, Stefanie. So trust me, for someone who’s been recruiting for 20 years.

Stefanie Trop [00:32:21]:
So, want to go to the O’s games to see the Ravens, to enjoy the waterfront and the paddling and the views. Excellent views, too.

Chris Frew [00:32:29]:
What’s the role that’s open?

Stefanie Trop [00:32:31]:
The what? Sorry?

Chris Frew [00:32:32]:
What’s the position that’s open with you?

Stefanie Trop [00:32:34]:
Oh, so we will have the. My former role as the senior manager of business development and life sciences. So anyone’s interested and wants to talk about it, I don’t know exactly when it’ll come online, but it will at some point.

Chris Frew [00:32:50]:
Until then, you’re wearing two hats, right?

Stefanie Trop [00:32:52]:
This is true.

Chris Frew [00:32:54]:
Well, I hope that a lot of people heard that and are ready to apply when the time is right. And, yeah, I’m excited again. I’m very excited about everything going on. I agree with you. BioBuzz has also been one of those who pivoted during the downturn. And I’ve launched our freelancer marketplace, our upwork for life sciences platform. And in doing so, we’re talking to a lot more early-stage companies and a lot of consultants that are working for early-stage companies. And that sentiment you shared, I think, is accurate.

Chris Frew [00:33:31]:
There’s a lot of energy that people have in this first, coming out of this first quarter that I hadn’t felt for a year or so. So I think there’s my momentum, and I’ll plug again, put my Maryland cheerleader hat on. There’s been some great momentum. Class therapeutics just launched with $150 million series coming out of Johns Hopkins. They’re going to be located in Montgomery County. Baltimore was selected for the phase two tech hub, so we got that momentum, biotech and AI. So there’s momentum there. Cartesian, bio factor, and Kite are all expanding in Frederick.

Chris Frew [00:34:14]:
Maryland, of course, has, like, three hubs, Baltimore, Frederick, and Montgomery County. But, I mean, Cartesian’s moving from Montgomery County to Frederick to expand. Biofactor is expanding. Kite’s expanding. Millipore’s expanding in Rockville. United Therapeutics is expanding with their really innovative xeno plantation plant in Silver Spring. There just seems to be a lot of this, you know, good expansion news. And then from Medtech, co-op tech launched their minimally invasive surgery solution out of city garage, you know, and launchport.

Stefanie Trop [00:34:49]:
Manufacturing there, which is love. Love. Yeah.

Chris Frew [00:34:53]:
Built in Maryland. So again, you know, I just, I wanted to mention some things specifically because.

Stefanie Trop [00:35:01]:
Thank you.

Chris Frew [00:35:01]:
To your point, the data is showing and that there’s growth on the horizon again. And what I love is that these companies are staying in Maryland, expanding in Maryland. And when you do that deep dive on your data, Stefanie, I hope you share it with me, but I bet you’re going to find a lot of people that we just talked about are using commerce programs in Maryland. So I’ll finish today’s agenda just with that. That there’s, there’s very tangible success stories and I guarantee a lot of them are working with your team.

Stefanie Trop [00:35:36]:
Yes. Thank you. So come talk to us. We’re free.

Chris Frew [00:35:40]:
That’s right. That’s right. Well, free and great views to your point. Great views and cheap parking. So. Well, Stefanie, thank you so much. Congratulations on everything and the new role you’re in. We’re excited for your leadership and all the additional work that you and your team are doing.

Chris Frew [00:35:58]:
And I hope that this is something that will help with your recruiting, too, for the next bd person that they can watch us and get excited about all the opportunities they have to partner with you and your team.

Stefanie Trop [00:36:08]:
I hope so. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Chris Frew [00:36:11]:
My pleasure. Well, thank you all for joining in today. I know we went a couple minutes over, but when the conversation is good, it’s hard to hit stop. So I hope you will continue to join us for these events. We’re going to do more. What’s the buzz? Got a couple more coming up. Just a plug for a few things we have coming up. We’re doing one on facilities and trends in life science facilities space with Ben Skarotsky from CRB.

Chris Frew [00:36:36]:
So that’s coming up. There’s a lot of really exciting things happening in the facility space with AI and there’s a lot of facilities in Maryland. The real estate market here has been great. So that’s coming up. And then again, just another plug. If you are on the market, I hope you’ll consider the Department of Commerce job. If not, be sure to check out BioBuzz. We have launched our new talent marketplace, so we’re actively putting interim scientists and interim data scientists.

Chris Frew [00:37:04]:
We actually put a data scientist to work on a short ten-hour project. We’re working on a bee scientist now for a group that’s developing a vaccine for bees.

Stefanie Trop [00:37:15]:
I used to keep bees.

Chris Frew [00:37:17]:
Oh, nice.

Stefanie Trop [00:37:18]:
In Baltimore.

Chris Frew [00:37:19]:
In an apiary, huh? Yeah, you’re on the apiary. So that’s 120 hours project. So if you’re a biochemist that can do some assay development. But these are the type of opportunities that we uncovered during this downturn, Stefanie, is that there’s this whole market for companies that are growing that don’t need full time roles, but there’s. So you’re a startup, you might need a fractional scientist or a fractional executive. Right now. There’s no job boards for that. It’s all word of mouth.

Chris Frew [00:37:50]:
But now with BioBuzz’s new platform, we’re creating a scalable solution for you to access resources to help you grow and keep your funding down and continue your Runway. These are all exciting opportunities in Maryland, with growing companies in Maryland that you can plug into today, whether it’s going to work with Stefanie or coming to us, work with one of our other startups, Maryland’s a good place to be.

Stefanie Trop [00:38:15]:
Love it.

Chris Frew [00:38:17]:
All right, well, thank you. Have a great day. Thank you all for tuning in. Thank you, Stefanie.

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