BioP2P Staff
The Maryland Department of Commerce awarded a $500,000 grant to Baltimore-based Early Charm Ventures to develop a biomanufacturing incubator at a Harford County-owned facility near Aberdeen Proving Ground.
The funding from the state’s Build Our Future grant will be used to upgrade the CONVERGE Innovation Center, formerly known as the HEAT Center.
Since 2012, Early Charm has been creating, owning, and operating ventures that convert university and federal lab inventions into commercial products that it manufactures in Baltimore. Those products include advanced materials such as 3D printed ceramics for power electronics, nanofibers for hydrogen fuel cells, flame retardants for the army combat uniform, and biologics modeling software for drug design.
“When the Harford County Economic Development team explained their vision for growing a biotech hub associated with APG and introduced me to the Army’s needs to biomanufacture advanced materials, we saw a great opportunity to partner” said Ken Malone, executive officer of Early Charm. “We have deep expertise in advanced materials and are accustomed to working with the Army. Add in APG’s expertise in biomanufacturing and the visionary support that the MD Department of Commerce is providing, and we think expanding our operations into Harford County is going to be a great success.”
Read the full release here.