PROVIDENCE – Achieving critical mass in Rhode Island’s emerging biotech industry sector is more about a perception than a metric, said Timothy H. Ehrlich, co-founder with his father, Dr. Michael G. Ehrlich, an orthopedic surgeon at Rhode Island and Miriam hospitals, of the Ocean State Angels investment group.

Still, the younger Ehrlich, a partner with the Massachusetts law firm Gunderson Dettmer, LLP, told ConvergenceRI that his group is bullish on the potential of Rhode Island’s life sciences industry cluster.

“There’s a lot of convergence – to use your term; there are all sorts of good things happening,” he continued, citing the emergence of the R.I. BioScience Leaders and MedMates. “These groups have really begun to stick.”

To capture the potential of that opportunity, Ocean State Angels has joined forces with Cambridge Biolabs and architect Scott Simpson, a principal of the Jacobs firm in Cambridge, Mass., in proposing to build a new facility on the former highway land now known as The Link.

On June 16, Ehrlich, Simpson, and Dr. Johannes Fruehauf , president of Cambridge Biolabs, met behind closed doors with members of the I-195 Redevelopment Commission and Gov. Lincoln Chafee to pitch their idea to build a life sciences accelerator.

Ehrlich was careful to avoid discussing too many details about the process in an interview with ConvergenceRI, saying only: “We are working the Commission; assuming that they want to continue the discussion with us, we will work with them to try and make this a reality. We are optimistic that we can get this built in a timely fashion.”

Assessing the opportunity
Ehrlich was willing, however, to talk in more detail about the concept behind the proposed facility.

Cambridge Biolabs, in the heart of Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass., serves as an incubator space and one-stop shop for start-up biotech firms. Services offered include lab space and support services, including assay development, cell culture, epigenetics, nanotechnology and high-throughput screening.

The proposed facility in Providence, according to Ehrlich, will not just serve biotech firms. “It will be a lab space, office space, and conference room space,” he said.

The vision is to create a workspace where there is friction and collision – where companies that are working in life sciences can be around other companies that are working in the same arena.

“Our desire is to make the building appealing and functional – and not just for life science companies, “ Ehrlich said. “We envision health IT, diagnostic companies, potentially medical device companies sharing the space,” he said.

Similar to what Betaspring does so well, he continued, “The new facility will be a place where entrepreneurs and companies can co-locate with other like-minded entrepreneurs and companies.”

Ehrlich hinted at the potential to create a maker’s tool shop in the new facility’s basement, but said those plans are still being finalized.

Competition and collaboration
Ehrlich did not see the new facility as being in competition with the Slater Technology Fund’s efforts to create a laboratory accelerator space at the former Fuji Film building in East Providence.

“I am very supportive of Slater and think that Rich [Horan, the senior managing director], does a fantastic job,” Ehrlich began. He did not see them as being competitors. The proposed Cambridge Biolabs facility, he continued, has the benefit of being located right in downtown Providence.

“Some people want to be in the downtown area. Providence is a fantastic place,” Ehrlich said. “We want to be part a cluster of buildings – including the Brown medical school and the hospitals. We think that there is a lot of value being located in proximity to those institutions,” he said, with the ability to walk back and forth between say, the hospital, and the new facility.

On the Cambridge Biolabs website, one of the featured quotes says: “Enabling my invention in the BioCloud [one of Cambridge Biolabs services] saved me sharing IP with the university,” according to a local biotech inventor.

Ehrlich said that he did not believe that services offered by the new facility would set a potential conflict with, say, the Technology Ventures Office at Brown University.

“At some point, people need to move outside of a lab at the university and create value in a company,” Ehrlich said. “At some point, if you’re going to get outside investors to help grow [the company], they’re going to grow new IP.” The growing up process for companies is part of the natural evolution, he continued. “The company needs to move out of mom and dad’s place, they need to get their own house.”

Ehrlich said that he believed that Katie Gordon, director of Brown’s Technology Ventures Office, whom he praised as a “seasoned expert,” would be supportive of the new project, although he said he didn’t want to appear to be speaking for her. Gordon did not respond to ConvergenceRI’s questions about her view of the new facility.

Generating excitement
Dr. Annie De Groot, the CEO and chief science officer at EpiVax, one of the early pioneering firms in the Rhode Island biotech industry cluster, welcomed the proposed arrival of Cambridge Biolabs.

“I’m happy to hear that Cambridge Biolabs is coming to Providence,” she said. “It will generate excitement in the biotech community, for sure.”

De Groot, who is also the director of the Institute for Immunology and Informatics at the University of Rhode Island, expressed disappointment with the lack of support from the R.I. General Assembly. “I’m concerned, however, that the current legislature remains science-phobic and investment-phobic. The biotech community, and not the ‘gaming’ community, is truly deserving of economic investment and support.”

De Groot continued: “We scientists and entrepreneurs create high-quality jobs that will move the Rhode Island economy forward.”

She put the failed investment in 38 Studios in perspective. “Had the R.I. Economic Development Corporation [now CommerceRI] invested in EpiVax instead of a baseball pitcher, way back when, EpiVax would have a drug in the clinic by now [Tregitope] and would have generated jobs at an even faster rate than we have done over the past few years.”

Mapping the project’s future
Ehrlich deferred from making any comments about expectations of when the proposed building might be completed. “Clearly, we would like to get this built as soon as possible. We realize that there’s an opportunity and a market need,” he said.

Ehrlich also stressed the importance of the collaborative partnership, and the role that both Simpson and Fruehauf play in the development of the project.

Ehrlich also cautioned against immediate expectations. “It’s a process, it has to evolve, it doesn’t happen overnight. If you look at New York, they had some false starts. Up until recently, until the acquisition of Tumblr for $1 billion, there really hadn’t been a big exit.”

Big exits, Ehrlich continued, “spur innovation, they throw off all the entrepreneurs that want to do something again.”