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Homegrown company celebrates expansion

A ribbon to formally open Bionique Testing Laboratories’ second location is formally cut by, from left, Executive Chair Dr. Jill Mariano, CEO Galdis Zamparo and Saranac Lake village Mayor Clyde Rabideau. The new lab is in downtown Saranac Lake in the village’s old water building on Main Street beside the Saranac River dam. (Enterprise photo — Peter Crowley)

SARANAC LAKE — Bionique Testing Laboratories has mostly laid low and done its thing in its 30-plus years here. But that thing — testing for mycoplasma (more on that in a minute) — has helped this family-owned biotech company grow into a significant local employer.

Judith Lundin recalls that Bionique had three-and-a-half employees when she and her husband Daniel founded it in 1990. Now it has 36, with more expected soon.

On Wednesday it cut a ribbon on its second location, in the village of Saranac Lake’s water building on Main Street beside the Saranac River dam. The mayor, the chamber of commerce staff and reporters from a Plattsburgh television station and newspaper came out to take pictures and do interviews out front. Bionique officials said they would have liked to host a tour or reception, but that wasn’t possible due to coronavirus concerns.

Bionique has been working in this downtown space since August 2020, so the ribbon-cutting was a formality — but it was notable that the company was calling attention to itself, proud of its growth and expecting more in the future.

“We are experiencing a material growth, a significant growth,” CEO Gladis Zamparo said. “Obviously the industry but also our expertise in where the industry is going is supportive of double-digit growth. So we are looking to continue to invest in our knowledge and capability to expand even further. I do see a bright future for Bionique.”

The company plans to remain here in Saranac Lake, she said.

Judith Lundin recalled how Bionique quickly outgrew its first home, a cabin on the Bloomingdale Road that now houses William Sweeney’s accounting office, and moved to the town of Harrietstown’s business park in Lake Clear. It currently has 33 staff members based there, although some are now working remotely, Zamparo said. Three more staff members work in the new downtown office, with a fourth expected in April and maybe a fifth later this year.

Bionique’s thing is mycoplasma, a type of bacteria that doesn’t have cell walls, which makes it resistant to antibiotics. It is best known for causing what was called “walking” pneumonia, which was a mystery before mycoplasma was understood. Judith Lundin said no one even know what mycoplasma was 57 years ago; they called it PPLO, pseudo-pneumonia-like organisms.

“There are approximately now close to 300 species of mycoplasma,” she said.

Bionique’s business niche is testing samples for mycoplasma contamination. It’s hard to detect, but Bionique specializes in it. If mycoplasma is present in a drug or a cell or gene therapy, it could make it unsafe and/or less effective, so pharmaceutical companies and others send samples to Saranac Lake.

Bionique says it is one of two companies on the planet solely focused on detecting mycoplasma.

Zamparo said the downtown site expands the services Bionique offers its clients. Here, companies can hire it to do research and development on new gene therapies.

The building is owned by the village, which no longer uses it and leases it to Bionique.

Daniel and Judith Lundin moved here from Connecticut in the early 1970s when he got a job as lab supervisor of the then-new W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center in Lake Placid. They are now retired, and their daughter Dr. Jill Mariano now leads Bionique as executive chair, along with Zamparo, who has been with the company five years.

“I’ve seen it grow, and it’s exciting to be at this point, inaugurating our second facility in Saranac Lake,” Zamparo said.

Health and science have been central to Saranac Lake’s economy since the 1880s, when Dr. Edward Livington Trudeau opened a tuberculosis cure center and laboratory that transformed a tiny hamlet into a bustling, cosmopolitan village. The nonprofit Trudeau Institute continues as a direct descendant of that lab, the Adirondack Health network is the area’s biggest private employer, and Ampersand Biosciences remains in Lake Clear after two other small biotech firms came and went in the last decade.

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