With companies such as OsteoGeneX, KC aims to be a backbone for biotech

By JASON GERTZEN
The Kansas City Star

This is a story of a scientist and a spine surgeon who teamed up to pursue a big idea.
Debra Ellies, the scientist, and Bill Rosenberg, the surgeon, now run OsteoGeneX Inc., a small Kansas City area biotechnology company.
It still is very much a startup venture, so success cannot be presumed a sure bet.
The young business is buffeted nearly every day by the need to refine or prove its science, raise money to keep going and tackle one more item on the seemingly endless to-do list of an entrepreneur.
Yet OsteoGeneX is gaining momentum.
Its eventual success could be a big deal.
A big deal for millions of women and others afflicted by the bone-weakening condition of osteoporosis.
A big deal for millions of baby boomers with worn-out joints and other patients who rely on surgeons to fuse their ailing spines or otherwise repair their injured bones.
And even a big deal to the Kansas City region, which is counting on small technology companies such as OsteoGeneX to make it big. These firms increasingly are sprouting in the area, and many offer the promise of rapid growth and good jobs that would bring a much-needed boost to the local economy.
OsteoGeneX joins a swelling roster that includes TVAX Biomedical, LLC, ImmunoGenetix Therapeutics Inc. and VasoGenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. Each is a company with good management, promising technology to solve serious health problems and initial investment-raising success, said Tom Thornton, the chief executive officer of the Kansas Bioscience Authority.
“We have a decent pipeline of companies,” Thornton said. “This is our grow-your-own strategy. Each is an example that shows we can do it in Kansas.”
Maybe one of these companies will become the next Cerner Corp., the Kansas City, North-based medical software business that has thousands of employees and more than $1 billion in annual sales. Or maybe the next Enturia Inc., a Leawood medical technology company that spun out of Marion Laboratories Inc. It eventually employed hundreds and recently was sold to Cardinal Health Inc. for nearly $500 million.
Known technology hubs such as California’s Silicon Valley or the Boston area have strong advantages in these pursuits. They are chockablock with entrepreneurs who learn from the successes, avoid the mistakes or just bounce ideas off their readily available peers.
This is not quite as easy in the Kansas City area, though the situation is improving.
OsteoGeneX shows how local biotech entrepreneurs manage in a place that the East Coast and West Coast deride as flyover country. The company’s experiences show how the region is shepherding these businesses in pursuit of building a biotech hub on this edge of Midwestern prairie

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