Photo by A.J. Kaufman
By A.J. Kaufman, Managing Editor
Informed people across the region are excited about East Tennessee’s surge into a national bioscience leader, fueling high-tech jobs and an economic boom in the Volunteer State.
However, while scientific innovation is soaring, clinical trial logistics still rely on slow, manual, often-error-prone processes. This is stopping life-saving treatments from reaching the market more rapidly.
A local facility is helping to solve that fundamental industry challenge from its Johnson City headquarters.
Founded in 2002, LabConnect has become a high-tech logistics powerhouse for clinical trials. Since relocating from Seattle to Johnson City five years ago, the company has expanded its local footprint to a 70,000+ square foot facility (including a 42,000 sq. ft. advanced lab and 5,000 sq. ft. biorepository). This hub drives LabConnect’s technology-driven global operation, deploying RFID-powered tracking for real-time chain of custody and using liquid nitrogen technology to maintain ultra-low temperatures, down to -190°C.
This investment has created and will continue in the new year to create high-wage local jobs and doubled lab capacity, actively speeding up drug development.
LabConnect claims it improves lives by partnering with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract research organizations and foundations/non-governmental organizations, to accelerate the development of new medicines around the world. The original vision of its three founders nearly a quarter century ago – one who remains with the company today – was to reinvent the way central laboratory services were delivered, focusing on pre- and post-analytical processes and services to address the most common client concerns within the industry.
Johnson City location is deemed a super site, since it provides clinical trial kits, clinical ancillary supplies and services, and biospecimen operations.
April Trent, executive director, Global CTM and Facilities, led the Business Journal on a recent tour of the company’s Johnson City properties. She noted their five core values: people first; quality focused; customer centered; technology driven; and accountability always.
“Every process and relationship we have is built upon these values,” Trent said.
The tree of life inside the facility is also relevant as it has leaves representing all the diseases that clinical trial kits go out to potentially cure.
“When you sit in a production area and you build kits daily, sometimes it’s easy to lose focus on why you do what you do,” Trent explained. “This tree helps remind us that what we do every day is important. We serve a noble mission.”
Two buildings exist on the site with many tasks performed. One is Kitting operations, another is Biospecimen operations. They have 71 freezers and about 750,000 samples stored at the location, ranging from a short time to up to a decade.
The company has 700 employees overall, with about 300 employees working in Johnson City, and 18% of Northeast Tennessee employees working remotely.
For a young company, many have lengthy tenures of seven to 15 years.
Employees work staggered shifts of eight hours, with the office open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. They also have operations in Cleveland, Miami and Seattle. The expansion is global to Australia, Europe and China next year.
Early next year, Trent says many manual processes will look more automated.
“This will cut down on the time it takes to process samples in the door,” she told the Business Journal. “A lot of the jobs we are going to introduce into the region are going to be more technologically driven jobs and less handling of the kits and samples.”
RFID technology also will be implemented on all samples.
“Every tube that has a sample in it, we will be able to track from the time the sample is collected; we can track in transit; we can track it back to the lab and into storage to see with the RFID tag exactly where it’s at in the system,” Trent explained. “We are creating an area we call the command center, where our clients can log into a website and they’ll be able to see their sample movement in real time. When you are conducting a clinical trial, that’s one of the most important things — tracking where is my sample, when will it be processed, and when I am getting those results.”
LabConnect promotes regionalism and economic development by working with local universities, including via intern programs, to attract future employees. ETSU — particularly the School of Science, Engineering and Math — has been a primary driver, but also King University graduates work at LabConnect. They count employees in their data management and bio-operations areas who attended Virginia Highlands Community College.
While most employees come from the local area, higher level positions originate from around the country. The company is not top heavy, with perhaps 10% of overall employees in leadership.
“There are a lot of businesses here in the Tri-Cities that I think a lot of people who’ve lived here for a long time don’t realize that we have these global businesses,” Trent said. “I came here and this little company in this small corner of Johnson City is expanding globally, and we are hiring more people all the time. Since I’ve been here, we’ve seen so much growth. When I started here, I think there were under 300 employees and now there are over 700. The rapid growth has been the driver for the need for the automation. To stay connected globally requires technology, and our clients’ utmost concern is how fast we can move their samples. So, logistics, technology, it all ties hand in hand.”
