Biotech's 'gold rush' Firm that makes synthetic DNA opens in Lowe Mill

Huntsville's past and its future are being blended today by a biotechnology company that has set up in the historic Lowe Mill on the city's west side.

Operon Biotechnologies Inc., a life-sciences company that makes synthetic DNA, moved into the Lowe Mill building beside the Flying Monkey Arts Center in May and is hosting an open house at 10 a.m. Monday.

The company is headed by CEO Patrick Weiss, a Swiss-born chemist who bought the company from Maryland-based Qiagen.

"I've described what we do as creating shovels for the gold rush," Weiss said.

Weiss had settled his original company, Xeragon, in Huntsville early in this decade, but it was bought by Qiagen in 2002, which then moved the operation to Maryland.

Weiss spun out the Operon line in 2004 and with the help of Huntsville biotech pioneer Jim Hudson and his family, brought the new company to Huntsville.

The company today has customers all over the world, with operations in Japan and Germany as well. It employs about 100 people in Huntsville, with its business centered in the first of two 38,000-square-foot floors at the mill building.

Weiss said the company essentially has built a building within a building for Operon. The company takes online orders from research centers, university labs and pharmaceutical companies and has them processed and sent out within 24 hours.

The pace of establishing the facility and keeping up in the competitive marketplace have been taxing, and Weiss said the past two years have flown by.

But he loves the location and enjoys the entrepreneurial spirit of Huntsville, where he spends about 80 percent of his time.

"The big cultural difference between here and Switzerland is here you're allowed to fail," Weiss said. "The typical Swiss or European approach is if you fail once, you're toast. Here, people are more willing to take risks."

Operon's products are used by researchers all over the country, as well as in Asia and Europe. The production effort is much more rapid, lower-cost and lower-margin today than the marketplace that Hudson helped create with his pioneering company Research Genetics, Weiss said.

"Today it's about $1 or $1.50 per unit," Weiss said. "Jim talks about days when it was $10 per unit."

On a typical day, Operon will process 400 to 500 orders and with intense competition, Weiss said customer service is essential.

"It's very important to researchers that the product be delivered on time, correctly," he said. "Once you can establish that stability, giving good, quality products, that can help grow the business."

Operon's products cannot be placed on shelves, waiting for orders. The chemical compounds have to be assembled after an order is placed. The typically dry compound is placed in a small tube and then shipped for researchers working on the entire range of life-science issues.

Operon's operations combine a research and lab environment with manufacturing lines.

Weiss hopes that the company eventually can expand into the potentially huge gene-synthesis market. Just as DNA eventually was replicated through chemical processes, genes potentially can be recreated in a similar way for research. That would mean chemical assembly with vast market opportunities.

"In the end, it all goes back to finding cures for something," Weiss said. "We're a very small part of that, but I am incredibly proud that more or less every researcher in the country is using these products."