SSTI Digest

In an attempt to attract more bioscience firms, Florida will invest up to $1 billion of its $102 billion employee pension fund into venture capital, the State Board of Administration recently announced. A forum was held last week by Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development agency, to outline the investment plan to more than 80 venture capitalists in attendance.

Leading the forum was Coleman Stipanovich, director of the State Board of Administration, Richard Lerner, president of the Scripps Research Institute and Gov. Jeb Bush. The pension fund is part of $5 billion the state puts into alternative funds to be used for higher risk investments, Stipanovich said. The first installment will be $350 million during the next 12 months.

BioFlorida named Diana Robinson as its new president.

The 2005 budget request submitted this week by Florida Governor Jeb Bush includes $20 million to establish two more Centers of Excellence at Florida universities. The new centers would join the three selected last year through a competitive process [see the May 16, 2003 issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest.] Each center receives $10 million from the state and is designed to foster innovative, cutting-edge technology research at Florida’s colleges and universities, develop commercially viable applications for that research, and recruit high-tech industries and thinkers to the state. The initial legislation enabling the state's investment in the centers permitted creation of up to five.

To help strengthen the academic research infrastructure, Gov. Bush also recommended the state commit $25 million to match private donations to state universities.

Tom Wallace has stepped down as president of the Tampa Bay Technology Forum.

With a $310 million commitment passed by the state legislature and as much as $200 million in additional support from the county government, the California-based Scripps Research Institute has agreed to locate its first branch or satellite office in northwest Palm Beach County, Fla. In return for the financial support, Scripps is to work toward employing as many as 545 workers on the site by 2011. At $935,780 per job – if the 545 target is met over the eight-year period – the project could be the most expensive tech-based economic development risk yet undertaken by the public sector.

The Florida Venture Forum named Robin Kovaleski as the first executive director for the organization.

The availability and use of equity capital for early-stage investments varies greatly across the country. Seen as an integral component of most tech-based economic development, access to venture capital (VC) is on the agendas of several states — but several different approaches are used to address the problem. Recent announcements in four states illustrate the point:

Rod Casto was recently appointed to the position of Associate Vice President for Economic Development in the University of South Florida's Office of Research. Mark Laurenzo also has been named the new Deputy Director of the Division of Patents and Licensing in the USF office.

The director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, Al Wenstrand, is leaving to become executive director of the Florida's Great Northwest, an economic development agency serving the Florida Panhandle.

Rosellen Kraus has announced she will be leaving the Central Florida Technology Partnership at the end of the summer.

To help build the state's technology sectors, Governor Jeb Bush and the State Board of Education have selected Florida's first three Centers of Excellence. The Centers are designed to foster innovative, cutting-edge technology research at Florida’s colleges and universities, develop commercially viable applications for that research, and recruit high-tech industries and thinkers to the state.

The three projects are:

Ed Linsenmeyer, with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, has been elected to serve as the Chair of the Federal Laboratories Consortium for Technology Transfer at the FLC's recent annual meeting. Larry Dickens, with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was elected Vice Chair.