The biotech industry has been growing slowly but surely in the Richmond area for years now. What started as a single firm started hiring more employees, using a biotech executive search agency to find qualified talent. Then more firms were set up and innovations started becoming more and more common. For onlookers of Richmond’s emerging biotechnology industry, Intelliject has been a joy to watch from the sidelines.

Intelliject’s backstory is one ripe for a movie treatment: In 2004, twin brothers Eric and Evan Edwards, both deathly allergic to a host of foods and other substances, set out to find a better way to deliver epinephrine than the standard pen-shaped products on the market, Epi-Pen being the most well known. Eric earns science degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University; Evan loads up on engineering degrees from the University of Virginia.

The twins’ talents combine and they build a management team with decades of life sciences experience to create Auvi-Q, which, in addition to its innovative shape, also includes audible voice prompts to walk users, amid trauma, through the epinephrine injection process.

Extensive research conducted using various biospecimens (read this or similar websites for more information) led to the creation of Auvi-Q. Epinephrine, a major component of Auvi-Q, is a hormone better known as adrenaline that makes the heart pump harder, increases blood pressure and opens up airways in the lungs. People who suffer from severe allergies – a condition known as anaphylaxis-typically carry an epinephrine pen filled with the hormone to inject themselves when they come into contact with life-threatening allergens such as nuts, shellfish, dairy, eggs, or insect bites. Essentially, an injection tells the body to fight harder.

Auvi-Q isn’t the only technology up Intelliject’s sleeve, although the company isn’t saying much about its other products in the pipeline other than that they are analogous to what Auvi-Q does-easing a non-healthcare person’s ability to administer drugs into their own or someone else’s body. Consider, say, a device to administer glucagon into a diabetic patient.

“As a commercial officer, it’s great [to be able] to assess which opportunities can really add to our sweet spot,” says Neil Hughes, Intelliject’s chief commercial officer. “There’s a lot of places we could bring our products where we’d make a big difference.” As the Intelliject team knows, the road to marketability (and profitability) in biotechnology takes years.

“The standard comment in pharma in general, is, ‘However long you think it’s going to take, it’s going to take twice as long and cost twice as much,'” Hughes says. “You have to believe in what you’re doing and have confidence in your path and accept that there will be bumps in the road.”

And so Intelliject has built a team resilient enough to navigate the many hurdles that are typical in biotech. Along the way, however, there have also been big wins, such as an outside loan of $15 million earlier this year.

Greater Richmond has seen growth in life sciences during the past 20 years and is becoming a thriving scientific community. In addition to Intelliject, Greater Richmond is seeing other biotech companies, such as Health Diagnostic Laboratory, which has been called one of the fastest growing businesses on the East Coast in recent years.

“There’s a nice mix of skill sets, which allows us to be creative and nimble,” explains Hughes. And he notes Richmond is starting to come into its own with science-rich startups, fueled by VCU and active recruitment of science to the region.

“You are beginning to see a nice hub and critical mass developing in Central Virginia, and being a part of that is exciting,” says Hughes. “Ten to 15 years ago it would have been much harder for us to do what we’re doing in Richmond. That’s not the case anymore.”