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Weekly UpdatesIN A NATIONAL RECESSION, it's a dangerous time for startups that are working to bring new ideas to market.
However, a number of growing life sciences companies across Indiana have found some shelter at business incubators that combine resources of the state's research universities and local communities.
The latest is a 40,000-square-foot facility in Bloomington that is scheduled for completion in 2009 and designed to accommodate both life science and Internet technology startups.
It's part of Indiana University's Innovate Indiana program, an effort to expand economic development across the state by working to bring technology from the school's public research programs and transfer it into new private companies. That effort includes promoting collaboration such as those between the university's school of medicine, the University of Notre Dame and a South Bend incubator; Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne and the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center; and regional campus programs and Inventrek Technology Park in Kokomo.
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"This undertaking represents a long-term commitment by Indiana University to provide our research scientists with all the support and assistance they will need to transform the discoveries and great ideas generated in their laboratories into marketable products and services," explains IU president Michael McRobbie. "Ultimately, all of Indiana will benefit from the jobs and economic vitality generated by this collaboration between public research and private entrepreneurship."
The new Bloomington site will complement the university's Emerging Technologies Center in Indianapolis, a 67,500-square-foot incubator located on the Central Canal that enjoys 98 percent capacity with 23 tenants. IUETC president Anthony Armstrong, who will oversee both incubators, said some companies have already committed to moving into the new Bloomington site, which will provide a balance of office space with traditional and wet laboratory needs.
"This is an extremely exciting rime for the economic development arm at IU, for the Bloomington business community and for our researchers who will now have a home where their advances can move forward with respect to business development," he says.
And in trying economic rimes, he stresses the importance of nurturing such young life science companies. "We need to not only grow new companies, bur also make sure that we don't lose any that are in the pipeline," he says.
Kevin Boscacci certainly agrees. As president of Prosolia, a life sciences company at the IUETC Indianapolis facility, he has seen how incubator benefits can lead to product development. Prosolia was founded in 2003 to commercialize revolutionary analytical chemistry tools that enhance mass spectrometers.
Prosolia got some national recognition for the technology that had initially been developed in the laboratory at Purdue University when one of its tools was featured on an episode of "CSI Miami" last fall.
The company sent a tool called the Omni Spray[R] Ion Source, to the popular television show and helped writers by generating data on how the technology could be used to separate overlapping fingerprints. They were rewarded by a close-up shot of their technology helping to solve the case.
While such publicity is always a nice boost for a new product, Boscacci notes that it is the more mundane aspects of running small life sciences company where incubators can really help.
"From my perspective, the incubators are extremely important to companies that require any type of special laboratory space," he explains. "To get any type of commercial space that is built with wet lab capabilities, you are looking at a 5-year lease, plus added expenses to set up the lab."
Add the time required to build a lab and the ability to make accurate projections for growth over five years and it becomes very difficult, he says.
"With an incubator, these facilities are already complete, lease terms are very favorable, and you can only lease the space you need and obtain additional space when needed," he adds.
In addition, Boscacci stresses the advantages of networking with other companies who are also located at the incubator to find partners or vendors.
"For example, we wanted to contract the software development of our ion source control system to a local company," he says. "In a matter of an hour, I was able to find two different companies in the building that were working with two different local software development companies. I was able to get a first-hand look at the type and quality of work that was being provided, at what price, and received advice on how best to work with these companies. What would have taken several weeks or months to identify and evaluate potential firms took only a few days."
Another advantage is being able to provide expertise to other companies and to collaborate on projects. For example, Prosolia served as a subcontractor for a government grant that came through the incubator and was able to draw on the resources of Phycotransgenic, another life sciences company at the IURTC that provided expertise on growing bacterial cultures. Prosolia returned the favor recently by providing a chemist who helped to start up a new analytical instrument for the company.
Such support and collaboration between growing companies is taking hold around Indiana in a number of other business incubators.
Purdue Research Foundation is aggressively leveraging the success of its Purdue Technology Centers by expanding its facilities in West Lafayette and across the state. Already home to more than 100 technology companies, the West Lafayette facilities anchor the 725-acre, award-winning Purdue Research Park, located just north of Purdue University's main campus.
Purdue Technology Centers has an additional location in Crown Point that brought 48,000 square feet of business incubation space to Northwest Indiana and is being complemented by another 18,000 square feet of similar space in New Albany to serve Southeast Indiana. Purdue Technology Centers will also have a major presence in central Indiana through a 55,000-square-foot facility at AmeriPlex-Indianapolis, a nearly 1,500-acre development by South Bend-based Holladay Properties.
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"At the core of all our efforts is the mission to work closely with technologists, entrepreneurs, and businesses for the purpose of assisting them down the path to the successful commercialization of their technologies, says John Hanak, statewide director of the centers. "We are excited about--and very active in--expanding those efforts through collaboration with other institutions, particularly Indiana University in the life sciences arena."
In Fort Wayne, LacPro, a probiotic biotechnology company that is developing therapies for diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, is a good example of how such partnerships can develop. The company conducts research and management operations at its facility at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center and also draws from resources at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Purdue University and the combined Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne campus.
While the benefits of incubation are appreciated by many small life sciences companies, eventually there comes a rime when they too must leave the nest and survive on their own.
Downtown Bloomington incubator in Venture has helped to launch two such companies; BioConvergence, a drug product development and clinical materials company that graduated from the facility and now has its own 70,000-square-foot office building, featuring lab and climate-controlled storage space and Predictive Physiology & Medicine, which outgrew its inVenture space about a year ago took a larger space and is planning to occupy half of a new 30,000-square-foot building in the city.
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