SSTI Digest

Massachusetts’ continuing success in the biopharmaceutical sector depends on finding new ways to fund startup and early stage research activities, according to a new strategic plan released by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio). The report cites recent data showing that life sciences venture capital has fallen by 50 percent over the past five years and many investors have turned to later stage investments. In place of this model of startup funding, the group recommends engagement with a number of alternative funding channels, including angel groups, foundations, wealthy individuals and crowdfunding services. The report also includes a number of other recommendations to improve the environment for new and growing life sciences firms. Massachusetts remains a global leader in bioscience research and entrepreneurship and tops the list of most indicators of life sciences innovation activity on a per capita basis, according to MassBio.  The state leads the country in per capita funding from the National Institutes of Health for academic research, patents, licensing and biotech venture investment. That key role in the industry, however, had made the…

Pointing to the growth potential in jobs and health within the life sciences industry sector, Gov. Jay Inslee vetoed a $20 million cut in funding to the nine-year-old Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF), allowing the fund to honor existing commitments and proceed with the 2013-14 Proof of Concept grant program and Entrepreneur Mentoring grant program. The state’s budget director David Schumacher said the sheer volume of letters from biotech companies in support of saving the fund carried weight in the governor’s decision, reports The Olympian. LSDF invests monies from the Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement in R&D that demonstrates the strongest potential for delivering health and economic returns to the state. Moving forward, John Des Rosier, executive director of the fund, said the group has been engaged in a strategic planning process to diversify funding for future years and the recent legislative session has prompted them to act with more urgency. LSDF’s tobacco settlement funding is scheduled to run out in 2017. In another update to previous reporting in the Digest, Gov. Inslee signed into law HB 2029, a measure effectively…

Maria Contreras-Sweet has been confirmed as the administrator of the Small Business Administration. Larry Ferguson has been chosen as the vice chancellor for economic development and workforce solutions at Kentucky Community College and Technical System. Rebecca Lovell has been selected as the startup liaison for the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development.

Maria Contreras-Sweet has been confirmed as the administrator of the Small Business Administration. Larry Ferguson has been chosen as the vice chancellor for economic development and workforce solutions at Kentucky Community College and Technical System. Rebecca Lovell has been selected as the startup liaison for the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development.  

A limited number of printed original copies of Innovation U 2.0 are available. The publication identifies the 12 best practice universities at generating economic impact from their intellectual capital. SSTI wants to share them with our community and will randomly select FIVE winners from our Facebook fans. Hurry! Winners will be announced on Facebook Friday, April 11. https://www.facebook.com/ssti.org

Together, New York and the Mid-Atlantic region were home to as much angel investment activity as California, according to the 2013 Year in Review edition of the HALO Report, published by Silicon Valley Bank and the Angel Resource Institute. Last year, California continued its reign as the top single region for angel activity, with 18.6 percent of U.S. deals and 19.6 percent of dollars. For the first time however, the combined activity of New York and the other Mid-Atlantic states reached levels similar to California, with 18.6 percent of deals and 19.7 percent of dollars. Activity dipped in New England, the Southeast and the Northwest. Combined activity in the Internet, Healthcare and Mobile & Telecom sectors represented more than three-quarters of all angel deals. The 2013 HALO Report is based on data collected by CB Insights and the Angel Resource Institute, which tracked 884 angel deals last year totaling $1.1 billion. The researchers found angel activity to be on the rise, with an annual increase in the number of high-valuation deals.  While the median round size for angel deals remained steady, the average size of rounds in which non-angels invested…

Groups in the greater Detroit and Pittsburgh regions recently released reports documenting the progress these metros have made over the past few years in building thriving technology economies. Detroit’s Automation Alley found that tech industry employment in the region grew by 15 percent in 2011, outpacing growth in all of the other 14 regions used as benchmarks in the study. A report on Pittsburgh’s investment economy, conducted by Ernst & Young LLP and Innovation Works, shows the region to have grown its per capita venture capital investment levels by 34.6 percent during the 2009-2013 period. Detroit ranks second only to Chicago in tech employment among Midwest cities, according to the Automation Alley report. The researchers estimate the region’s total number of technology jobs exceeds that of San Jose. Detroit’s concentration of tech employment in 2011, the percentage of all jobs that are focused on technology, was the highest in the Midwest. Many of these jobs are associated with the region’s automotive industry, which remains the largest in the country. About 9.7 percent of all advanced automotive employment in the U.S. remains in…

Many of the proposals put forth by Gov. Andrew Cuomo for growing New York’s innovation economy were fulfilled or received ongoing support in the enacted FY15 budget. This includes a final installment of $680 million to complete the Buffalo Billion initiative, new rounds of funding for the Regional Economic Development Councils, SUNY and CUNY challenge grants, and tax breaks for manufacturers. Lawmakers also approved funding for a new genomic medicine network and STEM scholarship program. Highlights of funding for new initiatives within the enacted budget are outlined below: $55.75 million for the New York Genomic Medicine Network to support a partnership between the University at Buffalo (UB) and the New York Genome Center. The partnership seeks to advance medical science using Buffalo’s Center for Computational Research to enable genetic discoveries. A dollar-for-dollar match is required from the Genome Center. The budget also authorizes $50 million of the Buffalo Billion initiative for UB. Read more… $8 million for a new STEM Scholarship program that will provide full tuition scholarships to any SUNY or CUNY college or university for students in…

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently announced the Chicago Anchors for a Strong Economy (CASE) program — an initiative to connect local small- and medium-sized business to a network of Chicago’s leading anchor institutions (e.g., hospitals, universities, cultural institutions, corporations). The CASE program is intended to create economic opportunities for local suppliers across all industries, including science and tech companies, by fostering strategic relationships with anchor institutions and equipping them with the necessary tools to successfully compete for contracts with these anchor institutions. A pilot program between the University of Chicago and 10 local companies has been operating since mid-2013 as a proof-of-concept for the city-wide program.   In 2014, the goal of the CASE program is to help more than 100 local suppliers successfully achieve contracts to provide business-to-business goods and services to up to 20 anchor institutions including the City of Chicago, Cook County, ComED, Illinois Institute of Technology, Rush University Medical Center and the University of Chicago. Participating companies, however, are not guaranteed contracts…

SSTI Excellence in TBED award winners produce real results that are changing the landscape of their communities, expanding infrastructure to grow high-tech sectors and improving the competitiveness of their regions. Their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed in the broader innovation community. Over the past couple of months, award winners have grabbed headlines – and funding – for their impressive work. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker stopped by Clemson University’s Center for Automotive Research to tout its success in workforce development. In St. Louis, Monsanto recently awarded $2.5 million to BioSTL to support bioscience startups and, in Arizona, a $1 million grant will help fund ASU accelerator programs. Commerce Secretary Touts CU-ICAR Model U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker has prioritized workforce development as part of her platform – particularly focusing on matching worker skills with industry demands. As she toured CU-ICAR last week, Secretary Pritzker said ICAR's campus “is a tremendous example of an educational institution conducting the type of leading-edge research that will keep America…

In response to declining appropriations and the termination of the Space Shuttle program, NASA has had to re-orient its approach to commercial partnerships. Over the past decade, NASA has turned to private partnerships to further the agency’s goals of space research and exploration. This same impulse has driven NASA to create regional partnerships to cultivate private space industry clusters and drive the development of the Commercial Crew program, which is highlighted as a core component of the agency’s FY15 budget proposal. These efforts have changed NASA’s role in regional, high-tech economic development from that of a research laboratory to a direct partner. The U.S. private space industry has expanded rapidly in recent years, according the Department of Commerce’s recent U.S. Space Industry Deep Dive report. Now over 80 percent of U.S. states participate in the U.S. space industry supply chain. While NASA funding and commercial space development has seen little or no change in the past decade, U.S. government purchase of private space company services increased by $5 billion from 2011-2012. A large part of the growth of the industry…

In his FY15 budget, President Obama proposed a sweeping, multi-agency push for new research and improved infrastructure to combat the effects of global climate change. The largest piece of the president’s climate effort is a $1 billion Climate Resistance Fund, intended to fund climate-change preparedness at the federal, state and local level. Though the budget has not found much support in Congress, the administration has begun moving forward with other parts of the climate strategy, launching a Climate Data Initiative to make potentially valuable climate data available to entrepreneurs developing climate-related products. The White House recently unveiled the full scope of its Climate Data Initiative, along with details of private sector and foundation efforts that will be launched in concert with the administration’s push.  The federal data.gov site now features a section devoted to climate data, which can be downloaded and freely used by individuals, businesses, researchers and others.  In addition to making existing federal data related to climate available to the public, NOAA has issued a request for information for partners to help make the…