Biotech start-ups show dedication, line up again for tax credits

Last year, Scott Allocco spent 12 hours sitting on a downtown Baltimore sidewalk, waiting to turn in his application to get a tax credit for the angel investors who'd promised to give money to his cancer diagnostics company, BioMarker Strategies. He was the third company in line.

This year, he was the first. He showed up at the University of Maryland's BioPark facility Friday at 10 a.m., armed with a borrowed air mattress and sleeping bag. He and other company executives will wait in the building's auditorium, which is available to them for the first time this year, for five days. They can't formally turn in their application until 9 a.m. Wednesday, and the tax credits are given on a first-come, first-served basis. Since 2006, 38 firms have received the credits. By the end of the day Friday, when his chief executive, Karen Olson, relieved him of waiting duty, representatives of 10 other companies had already lined up behind him.

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