Best Week, Worst Week: Md. economy gets S. Korean boost; Harford firm loses $45M award

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Maryland’s economy got a boost this week from two deals concerning South Korean-focused business interests, while a Harford County company is down in the dumps after losing a $45 million jury award over wanting to use its property as a rubble landfill.

Three Maryland biotech companies spun out from Johns Hopkins University’s startup incubator will have an influx of capital after their South Korean corporate parent raised $137.1 million in a venture funding round. The Howard County Economic Development Authority signed a memorandum of understanding with Born2Global Centre to help Korean startups gain a solid foothold in the U.S. market by providing assistance with establishing local hubs and a stable business foundation.

Digital editor Jason Whong reported Wednesday South Korea-based D&D Pharmatech Inc. raised the $137.1 million for Neuraly Inc., Precision Molecular Inc. and Theraly Fibrosis Inc., all Germantown-based firms that were started in Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures’ FastForward business unit. The financing round was co-led by U.S.-based Octave Life Sciences and Korean fund Smilegate Investment. Series A investors InterVest, Magna Investment and LB Investment participated, as well as individual shareholders, cofounders and employees. The companies will use the influx of cash to develop novel approaches to treat challenging diseases with significant unmet need.

On Monday, the Howard County Economic Development Authority and Born2Global Centre signed a memorandum of understanding to help support Korean startups in the county, helping give them a solid foothold in the U.S. market by providing assistance with establishing local hubs and a stable business foundation. The Howard County Innovation Center will create a soft-landing zone at the HCEDA for qualified South Korean startups.

Howard County is home to more than 170 companies owned by Korean-Americans. County Executive Calvin Ball said the MOU will help support Korean companies with innovative technologies that have high potential for growth.

Meanwhile, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals overturned a $45 million jury award to a company that has battled Harford County for nearly 30 years over the right to use its property as a rubble landfill. The court ruled that Maryland Reclamation Associates Inc. (MRA) waited too long to raise a constitutional challenge to the county’s rejection of the business’ plans.

Legal affairs writer Steve Lash reported Tuesday the court said MRA failed to file its circuit court challenge to the county’s adverse administrative decision within three years, as required by state law.

The Harford County Circuit Court jury had agreed with MRA that the county’s rejection of the landfill plan amounted to a regulatory “taking” of the company’s property for which just compensation was owed under the Maryland Constitution. The jury set the just compensation at $45.4 million, including $30.8 million in principal and $14.6 million in interest.

But the Court of Special Appeals concluded that the trial was for naught, as MRA fatefully did not file its court claim until 2013, six years after the county’s administrative processes had ended with its Board of Appeals’ June 5, 2007, rejection of the company’s request for variances to build the landfill.

That rejection started the three-year filing clock, because on that June day it became “abundantly clear that the county would not permit MRA to operate a rubble landfill,” thus putting the company on notice that it had a potential cause of action against Harford, the appellate court said.

In its ruling, the Court of Special Appeals disagreed with MRA’s argument that the three-year clock started not with the board’s rejection but when Maryland’s top court – the Court of Appeals — rebuffed the company’s appeal of that decision in 2010, rendering the 2013 filing valid.