Expression Pathology Signs Rockville Lease

Expression Pathology, a developer of technology for tissue protein analysis, has signed a five-year lease for 8,000 square feet of laboratory and office space at 9620 Medical Center Drive in Rockville. The larger corporate office will accommodate an expansion of its work force and better support its research collaborations and contract services.

Expression Pathology, which moved to its new space on October 1, occupies 6,500 square feet and is subleasing the remaining 1,500 square feet to Cellectricon, a Swedish biotech company that provides cell-based screening products for research and drug discovery.

"The space works extremely well for Expression Pathology, because it required the company to make very few improvements," says Matt Brady, a vice president
with Scheer Partners who represented Expression Pathology in the deal. Rickman Development owns the 64,000-square-foot building where Expression Pathology and Cellectricon are now housed.Rexahn Pharmaceuticals formerly occupied this 8,000-square-foot space.

Expression Pathology's new headquarters is more than 60 percent bigger than its previous office, which totaled about 4,000 square feet it subleased from Capital Genomix at 9290 Gaither Road in Gaithersburg.

In April of this year, Expression Pathology announced that it had received an additional $6.5 million in financing, exclusively led by Abraxis BioScience, a Los Angeles based biotech company. Expression Pathology said it would use the funding to apply its patented proteomics technology in developing proprietary, personalized-medicine clinical assays. The state of Maryland also committed $125,000 to Expression Pathology for the company's development of a test for the HER2 protein, an important biomarker in breast cancer tissue samples. This funding, announced by Expression Pathology in February of 2008, is part of the Maryland Technology Development Corp.'s Maryland Technology Transfer Fund and the Maryland Venture Fund's Challenge Investment Program.

"Expression Pathology has scored some nice funding in recent months, and its new space provides ample room for the company to add more employees," Brady says.

Scheer Partners, with offices in Rockville and Tysons Corner, focuses exclusively on the Washington and Baltimore regions.