Biotech Park Gets $2M Push

GERMANTOWN, MD-Development of the proposed 40-acre Montgomery College Life Science and Technology Park on the school’s Germantown Campus has gotten another boost with the granting of just more than $2 million from the state’s Department of Business and Economic Development for the facilitation of the project. Montgomery County has already contributed $4 million to the development of the park, which will be surrounded by federal agencies and research organizations in the I-270 corridor.

The park will ultimately accommodate one million sf of high-tech R&D laboratory space, manufacturing space and classrooms in a new sate-of-the-art education center. “The facility will not only provide a supportive environment for young, entrepreneurial companies, it will also serve as a training ground for students in the biotechnology and life sciences industries,” Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. says in a statement announcing the grant. Maryland, with more than 300 bioscience organizations in the state, carries the distinction of being the third largest biotech community in the country.