Directory details high-tech companies

By Judy Newman

Last year, Howard Teeter and business partner Christopher Conlon put up a building in the Lodi Industrial Park and opened a business that freeze-dries food and biological materials.

Their company, Anteco Pharma, is a newcomer to the Madison area's technology community.
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It is also one of the additions this year to the Greater Madison Area Directory of High-Tech Companies, released in April. The 160-page book lists nearly 460 biotech, medical device, computer-related and scientific consulting companies with combined revenues of just under $5 billion and more than 26,000 employees, or about 9 percent of the Madison area's labor force.

That's a "conservative figure," said Jim Mohrbacher, business development manager for Madison Gas & Electric Co., as it doesn't include statistics on companies such as Covance. The drug-testing and research business, whose parent company is in Princeton, N.J., is one of Dane County's largest employers with more than 1,200 workers.

Ten years ago, Mohrbacher said, there were 15,000 high-tech jobs at companies, with reported revenues of less than $2 billion.

"We've been working at it, slowly but surely," he said.

Teeter and Conlon are former employees of Waunakee-based Scientific Protein Laboratories, which sold them a large freeze-dryer. But that wasn't the only reason they opened shop here.

"We really felt at home in Wisconsin," Teeter said.

Anteco Pharma's first contract is with the dairy industry. Teeter said the company will also focus on nutritional supplements at first, and hopes to be approved for more regulated pharmaceutical freeze-drying and packaging in 2006. "It's a gentle process. It doesn't change the biological activity of the particular molecule," he said.

The company has five employees now, including Teeter and Conlon, and will likely be up to 10 by year-end, Teeter said.

He said the area is exceeding his expectations. "I see Madison to be a very fertile area for the biotechnology industry," Teeter said. "There are an awful lot of startup companies, up to some reasonable-size companies."

He said he's had numerous calls, offering encouragement and ideas.

"Networking opportunities in Madison are certainly much more than I expected them to be," he said. "I just thought this would be a nice place to live."

jdnewman@madison.com

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BellBrook Labs Chief Operating Officer John Majer holds up a sample bag of reagents the company sells to pharmaceutical companies for $800 a bag. The chemicals can be used to rapidly screen multiple enzymes as possible targets for drug development, helping pharmaceutical companies shorten research time and cut development costs. BellBrook is one of the companies listed in this year's Greater Madison Area Directory of High-Tech Companies.

BellBrook Labs Chief Operating Officer John Majer holds up a sample bag of reagents the company sells to pharmaceutical companies for $800 a bag. The chemicals can be used to rapidly screen multiple enzymes as possible targets for drug development, helping pharmaceutical companies shorten research time and cut development costs. BellBrook is one of the companies listed in this year's Greater Madison Area Directory of High-Tech Companies.
(STEVE APPS)

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OpGen, a Madison company involved in optical mapping for genome analysis, is one of the new additions in this year's Greater Madison Area Directory of High-Tech Companies. Co-founders David C. Schwartz, right, and Colin Dykes, chief scientific officer, hope the technology will help doctors determine effective treatments.

OpGen, a Madison company involved in optical mapping for genome analysis, is one of the new additions in this year's Greater Madison Area Directory of High-Tech Companies. Co-founders David C. Schwartz, right, and Colin Dykes, chief scientific officer, hope the technology will help doctors determine effective treatments.
(CRAIG SCHREINER)