The Baltimore Sun, Nov. 6, 2019: This Tech Company Is The First To Get A Boost From Moving To A Baltimore Opportunity Zone. Are More Coming?
The robot looks like a stout, little filing cabinet with one long arm, a simple-looking contraption that belies the precision of the brain, ear and throat microsurgeries it is designed to improve.
The company formed to develop and market the machine, Galen Robotics, recently moved to Baltimore from Silicon Valley and might represent the future of safer, less-invasive procedures.
“I like to say it will give the surgeons the effect of power steering,” said David Saunders, a company co-founder and chief technology officer.
Galen’s move to Pigtown, just west of downtown, also kicks off the city’s quest to attract significant private investment to businesses in its many federally designated “opportunity zones,” distressed areas that come with a federal tax incentive. Baltimore officials are poised to announce that Galen secured the first such investment in a city business after it moved here and some believe the tax benefit could be a bigger boon to businesses than real estate development that has gotten most of the initial attention.
