New at College Park

NexMed’s Bad News

Attorney Disbarred

Deaths

Corrections or additions?

This article by Barbara Fox was prepared for the November 20, 2002 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.

ETS Contract on Hold

Educational Testing Service’s CEO Kurt Landgraf was

expecting to win New Jersey’s contract for third grade standardized

tests (U.S. 1, November 13). But just as the awards were being announced,

another would-be contractor filed a protest. "We’re still hopeful

and we think that we can do the job. We are waiting to hear,"

says a spokesperson. "A similar thing happened in California when

we won the high school exit exam but the state still went with ETS

over Harcourt Brace, Riverside, and McGraw Hill."

ETS already has contracts to do elementary school testing in Puerto

Rico and California. The one-year Puerto Rico contract, worth $7.2

million, is for tests in Spanish-language reading and math for grades

three through eight and grade 11. The $150 million California contract

is for testing 4.5 million students in grades 2 to 11 from 2003 to

2005. ETS also has California’s $50 million high school exit exam

contract, along with secondary school contracts in Maryland and Georgia.

In Maryland, ETS is developing content exams for grades seven through

12, and similar content exams are being developed in Georgia.

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New at College Park

Who says there’s no market for commercial real estate

in central New Jersey? That’s certainly not the case in the Route

1 corridor, where construction started this month on a the first phase

of a five-building research and development complex on Schalks Crossing

Road in Forrestal Center.

Developer Lawrence Zirinsky Associates is moving forward with construction

of a 345,000-square-foot complex approved by South Brunswick Township

planning board last spring. When completed, the complex will include

two 75,000-square-foot, four-story buildings; two 60,000-square-foot

one-story buildings; and a 75,000-square-foot one-story building.

Current construction will encompass the first phase of the project,

which includes 175 square feet of space in one four-story building

and two one-story buildings. The R&D space will contain 20-foot high

ceilings and heavy-duty electric and will be custom designed for each

tenant. National Business Parks (NBP), the manager of College Park,

will be responsible for supervision of construction, and leasing and

management of the buildings.

Says Vincent Marano, COO of NBP: "Despite some current economic

uncertainties in the market, business firms are willing to commit

to a well-planned, well-located new space of the kind that we can

provide at College Park. "We are currently in discussion with

several companies who are interested in substantial portions of space

in the new complex."

He points out that College Park at Forrestal Center has been operating

at nearly 100 percent capacity for the past five years, with tenant

firms expanding to new space as soon as it becomes available. Current

tenants in the 815,000-square-foot, 11-building complex include Bloomberg,

FMC, Panasonic, Hitachi, Merrill Lynch, and Orchid BioSciences.

The new complex will face Schalks Crossing Road on a 31-acre parcel

contiguous to 2 and 4 Research Way and the 300 series buildings on

College Road East.

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NexMed’s Bad News

Prospects for NexMed, the company with products for

erectile dysfunction, were dealt a blow on Wednesday, November 13,

when it announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

has halted its open-label study of its flagship product, Alprox-TD

cream. On the good news side, the company can continue with two fully

enrolled Phase 3 pivotal studies of Alprox-TD, scheduled to be finished

in December.

Before the open-label study can proceed, NexMed must resolve some

issues about a 26-week study of the drug’s carcinogenic effect in

transgenic mice. Results showed that the cream’s penetration enhancement

agent was associated with an increase in benign dermal papillomas

in mice at the highest concentrations tested. The company says the

result does not suggest a safety issue, since the results were negative

at the lowest concentration tested.

NexMed may appeal the decision, but in any case this means a new drug

application will be delayed for about a year. It had hoped to make

this application in the second half of 2003.

NexMed now occupies its new 32,000 square foot laboratory and manufacturing

space on Twin Rivers Drive (U.S. 1, October 2). But in April Nexmed’s

auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, had doubts about the ability of the

company to continue. At that time NexMed had a $16.2 million loss

on revenues of $68,089 for 2001.