Philadelphia’s newest employer at the Navy Yard helps keep food safe to eat

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Whether it’s the hiss of liquid nitrogen being poured, the buzz of robotic arms manufacturing testing kits or the white noise hum of a pressurized room — that’s just the sounds of the work day — for the newest biotechnology neighbor at Philadelphia’s Navy Yard.

About 50 people work at the bioMérieux Navy Yard office — with room to expand.

“This is open 24/7,” said Adam Joelsson, senior director of assay development, industrial applications research and development at bioMérieux, about its newest hub with clean labs, offices and a warehouse.

Joelsson walked inside one of the laboratories that can hold about five scientists at the same time — from microbiology to sample preparation and the diagnostic machines.

“So it’s kind of staged in a nice flow in that way. The air system is actually slightly negative pressure in this room to keep contaminants from escaping the facility,” he said. “We need to be highly efficient. We can deliver a mature prototype in about six months.”

All of that was custom built on the second floor of the Navy Yard’s newest commercial office building that was constructed without any customers ready to move in, known as speculative development.

But it attracted French giant bioMérieux’s new division that was once a Philadelphia startup acquired in recent years.

“Who would have thought that the world leader [of the food safety] industry would have acquired our company … that started out of essentially a tiny walk-in closet that we called a lab at the University City Science Center,” said Ben Pascal, global head of bioMérieux’s xPRO program and co-founder of that startup Invisible Sentinel to a crowd of executives and supporters Wednesday.

In 2019, Invisible Sentinel, was acquired by bioMérieux for $75 million.

The startup developed molecular tests to detect contaminants that can spoil foods like poultry or ruin drinks like beer, wine and juices — which is the backbone of bioMérieux’s xPRO program.

The reason this new molecular and genomic innovation center for bioMérieux employees is open both during the day — and sometimes at night or on the weekends — is that sometimes clients need emergency services.

Sometimes manufacturers need immediate help if there’s contamination that could make customers sick — they need to quickly identify exactly what pathogen is causing the issue and then test to make sure it’s been eliminated.

“In the ketchup industry we had a group that was seeing gas production [from the final product] that was noticeable by their customers,” Pascal said. “So we looked at their samples and we were able to understand the isolates that were there.”

Sometimes “nature finds a way” and there’s an organism that survives even the pasteurization process and sneaks past quality assurance professionals, he said.

The company will even sequence the genes of any mystery organism as part of its research to determine what the organism might be and whether it will lead a food or beverage to spoil.

[With] beer and wine [it’s] not pathogens but there’s a lot of organisms that’ll destroy a good brew or will destroy a wine that somebody worked on all year,” Pascal previously told WHYY News. “We want to make sure that from a microbiological standpoint that the product is as safe as possible to consume.”

Some of bioMérieux’s customers include Body Armor, Victory Brewing Company, Jackson Family Wines and Herbalife.

BioMérieux donated $10,000 to the Science Center’s FirstHand program, a free STEM program for middle and high school students as part of its office opening.

The whole package — from community involvement to a brick and mortar footprint — is the goal for more biotechnology companies, said Mark Seltzer, of real estate business Ensemble Investments at the Navy Yard in collaboration with Mosaic Development Partners and Oxford Properties.

“We have been very successful over the last decade of attracting both local companies and from around the globe,” Seltzer said. “Directly across the street [from bioMérieux’s offices] we’re building 614 residential units. This will be truly mixed-use with ground floor restaurants and retail above.”

There’s already a bicycle rack nearby with the city’s bike share program and green space, trails and nature walks nearby, he said.

“The Navy Yard serves as a place for Philadelphia green space with parks along the waterfront and trails,” he said.

And the entire complex is within walking distance of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, which includes a view of professional football stadium Lincoln Financial Field.

Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson touted the new center within city limits and promised that he’d do “anything that I can do to not only keep businesses here but recruit your peers to open their businesses in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.”

Over the years, the startup Invisible Sentinel was supported by local grants and various economic incentive programs like tax credits.

As to why the biotechnology company stayed in Philadelphia, it was the people, Pascal said.

“The support we had from the community was tremendous, there was access to sophisticated capital that understood building a diagnostic company, and a lot of people here in Philadelphia are really strong in life sciences,” he said. “The people in the city of Philadelphia, helped us network, helped us get to the right folks, helped us meet customers.”