FROED One Government Center Fall River, MA 02722-7700 Tel 508-324-2620 Fax 508-677-2840 info@froed.org		HATCHING A PLAN FROED loans Hatch Scinece $250K as it waits for arrival of F.R. Biopark The Herald News, Saturday, June 4, 2009 - Page B4 Fall River - Ever wonder how an aspirin dissolves in your stomach in order to ease your pain? Or how it breaks down in your body and where it travels to? The machine that helps to test that process and determine if the drug is doing what it should be before, during and after the it hits the pharmacy shelves is now being designed and manufactured in Fall River’s Industrial Park by Hatch Science. After selling off his 10-year-old company last year, Hatch Technology, that developed and built automated manufacturing and control systems, Martin Schwalm created Hatch Science out of its ashes. Where his former company dealt with a variety of automated systems, Hatch Science is attempting to prefect automated pharmaceutical testing systems that simulate the digestion process and a drug’s journey from ingestion to dispersion throughout the body. Although still technically a startup company, Schwalm has teamed up with global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb and other major pharmaceutical companies in order to properly design the testing equipment. “Every drug sold in the U.S. has to go through one specific test called a dissolution test which mirrors what happens in your stomach when the drug dissolves, where it picks up certain characteristics if the drug is not working right,” said Schwalm. “The automated system fills up different vials with fluids, drops in gastric fluid to dissolve and goes over the testing membrane telling whats in the drug, and what the concentration is over time.” He said every bottle of aspirin or medicine you see at a CVS has gone through a battery of tests to get on the shelves and continues those tests throughout its production as part of the requirements of US Pharmacopeia, the FDA equivalent for the pharmaceutical industry. Hatch Science was recently approved for a $250,000 loan from the Fall River Office of Economic Development, money Schwalm said will be used to purchase parts and equipment to continue to manufacture the automated systems that get designed and built at the Fall River plant. While Hatch currently employs 10 workers, eight of which are full-time, FROED Executive Vice President Kenneth Fiola Jr. said Hatch will be looking to hire another five to ten workers during the next few years, though Schwalm said the number will likely be higher. Schwalm said while he feels there is an impression that high-tech businesses do not hire from Greater Fall River or more specifically Fall River itself, he said he always looks local first with a number of his staff coming right from Fall River. After the rise and fall of a number of industries that called Fall River home, Fiola said Hatch Science will help bring about the dawn of a new industry -- bioprocessing -- where Massachusetts is charting the course. “This is the type of company that we feel will help facilitate more ground-breaking in the city in the biomanufacturing and bioprocessing fields,” said Fiola. “They do a lot of work in the biotechnical fields and network with biocompanies to identify ways to help them with their issues and Hatch will be an asset when the proposed BioPark is built.” The SouthCoast BioPark, to be built on a 300-acre site adjacent to the Fall River Industrial Park, will include a UMass Dartmouth bioprocessing facility and a number of other biotechnical buildings, with plans to break ground sometime in 2010. Schwalm said in debating where to locate his startup company late last year that would best serve his needs, it was the initial idea of the proposed BioPark that kept the fledging business in the Spindle City. “It (the BioPark) will open up new opportunities for us and companies that are in the same field, helping to attract other companies in our industry, helping us to sell our products and develop new products,” said Schwalm. “This is an industry that will help move the worldwide economy and Fall River will become a hot spot for it.” Already setting up numerous pharmaceutical testing sites in the U.S., Schwalm said Hatch Science is ready to set up its first testing site in Europe. Each testing site includes a visit to the Hatch Science building, training on the equipment and running the equipment through its paces, before shipping it to the company, where Hatch engineers will then travel to in order to continue training. Schwalm said part of the reason for Hatch Science’s success comes from involving each customer in the production and the tweaking of their automated testing systems. “When we developed the original Cetus (dissolution system) we went to BMS and when we’ve developed others, we’ve taken it to other pharmaceutical companies to get their input, that way by the time it is developed, the customer would feel they had a hand in it,” said Schwalm. “This lets them feel that they have full ownership and with any business, you want your customers to feel like they’ve had an impact, that you’ve listened to them, making for a good chance that they are going to purchase.” Back