Metro Orlando’s biotechnology and life science sector encompasses hundreds of organizations dedicated to research and development that is integral to improving quality of life. Whether their work is in extracting plant nutrients to produce vital vaccines or creating data management systems for medical records, these businesses contribute to the continued growth and success of the industry. Listed below are brief overviews of some of Metro Orlando’s leading biotechnology and life science companies:

Burnham Institute for Medical Research
The Burnham Institute for Medical Research – a premier non-profit medical research facility focused on therapies for cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases – announced last summer that it would build an East Coast operation in Metro Orlando. With plans to create 300 research jobs and build a 175,000-square-foot facility, Burnham’s facility in Orlando will reside in Lake Nona, as part of a new high tech corridor dubbed Innovation Way. It will be co-located with the recently announced $200 million University of Central Florida College of Medicine, a new University of Florida medical research lab, a new VA hospital and a proposed Nemours Children’s Hospital. Combined, these developments will bolster Orlando’s position as an emerging medical and biotech hub.

Cardiovascular Sciences, Inc.
Cardiovascular Sciences, Inc. is a development stage company engaged in the research, development and commercialization of engineered tissue products, including a biocompatible Human Vascular Tissue Equivalent for coronary bypass and peripheral vascular tissue replacement. Metro Orlando serves as its international headquarters.

Cognoscenti Health Institute
Cognoscenti Health Institute is an evidenced-based clinical laboratory based in the Central Florida Research Park, adjacent to the University of Central Florida in East Orlando. Cognoscenti delivers on-site state-of-art diagnostic testing and professional interpretive services to community physicians, hospitals and the general population and offers faster turn-around time and consultation support via advanced information technology.

Cognoscenti’s 6,500 square-foot facility houses a high-tech clinical laboratory offering over 900 tests of interest and value to referring physicians and patients, more than 250 of which are performed on-site. Cognoscenti is committed to partnering with the local medical community to provide excellence in healthcare and to contribute to the development of a local biomedical industry.

CORD:USE
Founded by obstetricians who make blood stem cell products more readily available, CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank’s program at Orlando Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies is utilizing umbilical cord blood – the most readily available source of stem cells– to help save lives. CORD:USE collaborates with hospitals nationwide to provide mothers with the opportunity to donate their babies’ umbilical cord. This partnership satisfies their mission to create large, ethnically diverse inventories of cord blood stem cell units, which continues to improve the odds of survival for patients in need of a stem cell transplant.

CuraScript, Inc.
CuraScript, Inc., once the nation's largest privately-held specialty biotech pharmacy services company and a subsidiary of Express Scripts, combines high-tech distribution capabilities and clinical services to provide specialty inject-able medications to individuals requiring complex, high-cost treatment. Recognized as an industry leader in managing care for patients with chronic illnesses, CuraScript employs over 2,500 team members and their state-of-the-art dispensing facility is headquartered in Orlando. Office and clinic-based physicians are the primary customers of their distribution services which provide integrated delivery solutions to safely and consistently distribute pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. CuraScript has a network of satellite distribution pharmacies, including a hemophilia center of excellence, and several infusion centers located across the United States.

Emergency Medicine Learning & Resource Center (EMLRC)
The EMLRC provides continuing medical education and research activities for the vast community of emergency care providers through multiple technological formats including classroom and distance learning settings. The EMLRC provides interactive courses with hands-on learning environment, including a simulated emergency room, ambulance, and high-tech simulators to train emergency first responders to react to situations ranging from heart attacks to bioterrorism events. The center also conducts research in the areas of disaster management, emergency medicine and public health.

Florida’s Blood Centers
Florida's Blood Centers (FBC), a not-for-profit organization, is the sole supplier of blood and blood products to 70 healthcare facilities in a 21-county area. With its 875 employees they are able to provide more than 360,000 units of blood and blood products each year donated entirely by volunteers. FBC remains the largest blood bank in Florida and the fourth largest independent blood bank in the nation. In addition to supplying blood and blood products, FBC offers HLA tissue matching, bone-marrow donor registration and a full-service tissue and eye bank.

Florida Hospital
Florida Hospital is an acute-care health care system that is part of the comprehensive network of hospitals of the Adventist Health System. It is the largest private, not-for-profit hospital and is the oldest and largest health care system in Central Florida. Florida Hospital offers a wide range of health services for the entire family, including cardiology, neurology, diabetes, and women’s medicine.

• The Rippe Health Assessment is the only executive health program in the United States directed by a board-certified cardiologist. Because of both the quality and totality of its assessment program, the Rippe Health Assessment has rightly been called "the finest high-touch, high-tech executive health assessment in the world." The Rippe Health Assessment (RHA) has been developed by Dr. James Rippe, internationally recognized for his fitness and lifestyle research and medicine, to meet a number of health and wellness needs. It incorporates the advantages of the finest diagnostic equipment and systems, as well as state-of-the-art medical technologies.
• As the first of its kind in Central Florida, the Nicholson Center for Surgical Advancement will be a premier center for hands-on surgical instruction. The prime objective is to develop and disseminate cutting edge surgical knowledge and techniques to the global surgical community through state-of-the-art teleconferencing technology. Participants perform minimally invasive surgical procedures at one of nine state-of-the-art endoscopically equipped stations.

Informed Care
Informed Care provides disease management and telemedicine services to address the complications and costs of chronic illnesses and public health conditions. The delivery of services falls into two categories: the provision of case management services and the provision of software, networks and infrastructure to provide remote consultation and care to patients through caregiving providers or networks.

INTER BIO-LAB, Inc.
INTER BIO-LAB, Inc. is an established international provider of superior reconditioned clinical diagnostic analyzers. The company strives to deliver high quality instruments, meet its customers’ delivery schedules and keep up with technological advances. IBL’s extensive partnerships allow the company to provide superior chemistry, hematology, coagulation, blood, gas and electrolyte analyzers at an excellent value.

The company recently opened a new 36,500 square foot facility in the heart of Metro Orlando. The facility features a high tech department with new technology and storage capabilities.

Orlando Regional Healthcare
Orlando Regional Healthcare is one of Florida's most comprehensive private, not-for-profit healthcare networks. A community-based and supported hospital organization of facilities, they are dedicated to serving the needs of our region. Comprised of Orlando Regional Medical Center, Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando, Cancer Research Institute, Orlando Regional Healthcare Foundation, plus more.

• M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando
  Part of the Orlando Regional Healthcare System, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center is the first and largest affiliate of the world-renowned University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. M.D. Anderson works to create superior programs in multidisciplinary patient care, prevention, research and professional and community education. They have achieved significant improvement in the quality of cancer care in Central Florida, providing care to cancer patients from diagnosis through all phases of treatment and follow up.

Ortheon Medical
Headquartered in Metro Orlando, Ortheon is a development stage company currently working on commercializing its proprietary Teno Fix™ technology. Teno Fix™ is designed to replace the suture methods that orthopedic surgeons currently use in soft tissue repair. Under a research agreement formed with the University of Central Florida (UCF), university biomedical engineering researchers will analyze new uses throughout the body for this revolutionary tendon repair system. UCF researchers will perform biomechanical testing, create prototypes, and provide lab assistance and analysis relating to Ortheon's Teno Fix™ technology. The project will be funded by Ortheon, which has received a matching research grant from the Florida High Tech Corridor Council.

Triad Isotopes
Triad Isotopes, Inc., headquartered in Orlando, works to advance the diagnosis and treatment of disease through the use of radiopharmaceuticals and is the fastest growing radiopharmaceutical company in the nation. The company has brought together 21 of the best independent facilities serving the nuclear medicine industry. The pharmacies, doctors and hospitals under the Triad Isotopes ownership umbrella are given the funding, corporate resources, and quality assurance standards vital to delivering growth, superior service and innovations in the nuclear medicine industry.

UroSolutions, Inc.
UroSolutions, Inc. is a medical technology company that manufactures and distributes urological medical devices. The company’s revolutionary technologies include a patented hydrodynamically bladder management system, as well as other products promoting the health, comfort, convenience and safety of urinary care patients. The company’s UroCycler® Bladder Management System was the 2002 winner of the Florida Governor’s New Product Award.

Valensa International (formerly U.S. Nutraceuticals LLC)
Valensa International is a science-based developer and manufacturer of high-quality ingredients for supplemental human nutrition. Today, the company is the leading vertically integrated global supplier of saw palmetto and astaxanthin products. Additionally, Valensa manufactures a line of high value botanical extracts including cranberry seed, ginger, rosemary, oregano, valerian, and other botanical ingredients.

VaxDesign Coporation
VaxDesign Corporation is an emerging biotechnology company that challenges disease differently; going beyond pathogen-oriented to immune-oriented science for creating and testing immunotherapies, they combine immunology with engineering to find practical solutions to complex biological problems. VaxDesign develops ex vivo models of human immunity that are functionally equivalent to the human system, and will predict human responses to pharmaceuticals and vaccines much better than existing approaches. Their models will provide a rapid and cost-effective solution and have the potential to save companies years of development time and millions of dollars of development costs. The company intends to become a leader in the field of immunotherapy and is dedicated to developing and commercializing their products and processes that harness the power of the immune system to treat a wide variety of diseases.

Virtual Reality Medical Center
San-Diego based Virtual Reality Medical Center is accelerating Orlando’s cutting-edge development work with computer-generated simulations. By implementing virtual reality, the company is able to treat mental-health disorders and train health-care providers, establishing veracity in the field of simulation psychotherapy. Components of the program feature sensational characteristics, such as visual, audio, motion and scent, and researchers can examine real-time results of the subjects’ physical, emotional and psychological reactions.

Cognoscenti Health Institute Profile - Article from Texture magazine, Issue 1 2004