After 16 years growing a biotech drug testing startup into a $35 million corporate buyout, Paul Silber is ready to change gears.
Recently named the new chair of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council?s Biotech Roundtable, Silber can?t go from “100 miles an hour” running his own company and managing the transition to full-time hobby gardener.
“I?ve always reached out and had good connection with the other bioscience companies,” Silber said. “Baltimore and the bioscience community has given me an awful lot over the last decade.”
His company, In Vitro Technologies Inc., grew from two scientists sharing a crowded workbench in a local business incubator to a major biomedical company transforming the way drugs are brought to market.
It was purchased by the Celsis International PLC a year ago, and Silber spent most of the last year managing the transition.
When the roundtable leadership came open, the timing was right, and members wanted one of their own in charge.
“Paul Silber is one of the leaders, if not the leader, in Greater Baltimore?s biotech community,” GBTC Executive Director Steve Kozak said in a statement.
For the first four years, the group of biotechnology entrepreneurs met with a consultant as chair, GBTC spokeswoman Melanie Kelleher said.
Silber, on the other hand, “not only started a company, but also went through the transition of being acquired,” she said. “He?s also had some time off from running a company, so he can reflect on his experiences and what it took to actually run a company.”
The Biotech Roundtable formed to support and promote the growth of biotechnology companies in the Greater Baltimore region. It is a private membership group designed to provide a place for technology-based entrepreneurs to meet and learn and do business, Kelleher said.
“It?s a good way to spend a few hours every month,” Silber said. “It builds a sense of trust and community and that?simportant.”
