Biocogent, maker of skin care ingredients, plans $10 million expansion in North Bellport

If you use brand-name skin creams to look younger, treat acne or sun damage, chances are some of the ingredients were developed by a biotechnology company in Suffolk County.

Biocogent LLC supplies more than 60 active ingredients to major manufacturers of well-known skin care products in 14 countries.

The technology startup is in the middle of an expansion that involves moving from 12,000 square feet at Stony Brook University’s Long Island High Tech Incubator to a three-building campus in North Bellport. The project, valued at more than $10 million, will likely wrap up in December or early next year.

Biocogent needs the additional space because it anticipates increased demand for its ingredients. 

“When we’re done, we’ll have more than tripled our space and increased our production output by six times,” said Joseph Ceccoli, the company’s president and founder.

Biocogent is the latest example of a local startup to be founded and nurtured in a business incubator on a university campus and then graduate into space off campus. The Stony Brook incubator has more than 70 graduates, including medical imaging company SynchroPET and public companies Intellicheck and VasoMedical. 

Economic developers and economists said startups are a vehicle for turning inventions from university researchers into commercial products and to create jobs.

The state has invested tens of millions of dollars to establish “a research corridor” in Nassau and Suffolk counties that ties together universities, research laboratories, business incubators and manufacturers to foster the growth of startups such as Biocogent. 

Ceccoli opened Biocogent 15 years ago in the Stony Brook incubator. He said access to professors, students and libraries has been integral to the startup’s development. Biocogent has 44 employees and expects to add at least four more in the next few years.

“We have a lot of Stony Brook graduates and we intend to always keep a tether to the university,” Ceccoli said during a tour of the company’s office and warehouse at 15 Pinehurst Dr., which opened two years ago.

Ceccoli said Biocogent is putting the finishing touches on a new factory at 19 Pinehurst Dr., which is slated to open this fall, and then will convert 9 Sawgrass Dr. to a research and development operation. The latter will open late this year or early next year, he said.

Biocogent is among three local companies to recently be awarded allocations of low-cost electricity from the state Power Authority to support new buildings and equipment purchases. Biocogent won 556 kilowatts for seven years.

The other power recipients are:

CubicAcres, a vertical lettuce farm in Calverton, which received 176 kilowatts to support a $15 million expansion that will bring its workforce to at least seven employees.

Modern Italian Bakery in Oakdale, which won an additional allocation of 140 kilowatts to support the purchase of $150,000 in refrigeration equipment. In return, the company will add at least two jobs to its workforce of 160 employees.

Lewis M. Warren Jr., an authority trustee and commercial banker from Nassau County, told Newsday the low-cost electricity helps businesses locally and across the state to “stay competitive and grow within our communities."

Besides the power authority, Biocogent’s expansion is being supported by Empire State Development, the state's primary business-aid agency, and the Brookhaven Town Industrial Development Agency.

ESD awarded $1.5 million in grant funds and tax credits. The IDA awarded tax breaks totaling about $1.5 million in deals lasting 10 to 15 years, according to public records.

IDA chief executive Lisa M.G. Mulligan said the agency wants to help tech startups that are graduating from the Stony Brook incubator to remain in Brookhaven. "I've been talking with Biocogent for years because we want them to expand here, to create jobs here," she said.

Without the government assistance, Ceccoli said Biocogent wouldn’t be able to continue “inventing and investing to stay relevant."