BLACKSBURG—The Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center is using a joint-effort approach to support life science startups in the Roanoke and New River valleys.
The CRC announced a partnership with Montgomery County, Roanoke and Carilion Clinic to build new shared lab facilities at the center in Blacksburg for smaller life science startups, with the ultimate goal of opening up a larger facility in Roanoke in the foreseeable future. It also announced a unique partnership with Johnson & Johnson.
The $1.1 million project is largely funded by GO Virginia, a statewide economic development initiative, that has awarded the research center $600,000 toward the project that will create 25 wet and dry lab spaces in a turnkey facility, with the rest of the funding coming from the aforementioned partners, according to CRC CEO Brett Malone.
He said that the current project will be a small scale blueprint for the lab the multijurisdictional group hopes to build in Roanoke in the next few years. Malone said the group has its eye on some property but did not specify the location.
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The funding for the design and engineering of a similar, but much larger, facility in Roanoke is already secured, but the total cost of the project is not yet known, according to Malone.
He and Roanoke’s Economic Development Director Marc Nelson also noted that in addition to helping small companies grow, the Roanoke facility would aim to attract mid-sized companies to the area, while also helping to foster the research currently underway in the area.
“Ideally what we would be looking at is a renovation like we are doing now, but on a much larger scale,” Malone said. “I don’t have exact numbers but something between 30 or 40,000 square feet is what we’re aiming for.”
What’s unique about the Blacksburg facility is that it will be available for short term usage, with users being able to sign up for leases of as flexible as a month, which is something not currently offered in the region.
“We needed to build labs but we wanted to build a different product. And we also want to support our life science startup community,” Malone said. “We’ve had demand. We’ve had demand in the past that we’ve had to turn away because they’re too small to build their own labs but they have funding. It’s killed me to have to turn them away in the past”
He also noted that nearly a dozen or so companies have inquired about this type of shared space already, and formal applications for a space in the labs Malone hopes will be ready by late summer will be available at the start of 2022.
Another wrinkle in the plan is the VTCRC’s new partnership with Johnson & Johnson, which will allow a certain number of companies using the new space to join the corporation’s entrepreneurial program, Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s JLABS, according to a CRC news release.
“So really it started with a vision for this partnership with Johnson and Johnson. J&J really is the key because they are bringing the programming and the expertise and we’re building the facility,” Malone said.
JLABS provides early-stage innovators with access to its virtual residency program, which includes expert mentoring, programming and resources many startups with great ideas, but a lack of resources, especially on the business side of things, need, according to Malone.
The collaboration is aimed to meet the needs of emerging startups and existing biotech companies in the region. In the first year of the collaboration, the goal is to select five companies by JLABS and the CRC for participation. Applications will become available in early 2022, according to the CRC news release.
“It really is a great opportunity for these startups. We will select five the first year and increase it from there,” Malone said. “Funding isn’t guaranteed, but J&J gave more than $500 million to projects in 2020. Companies in their program have about an 80% success rate.”
Don Halliwill, executive vice president and CFO for Carilion Clinic said the partnership is a big win for healthcare in the region.
“Additional wet and dry lab space in our region is a real boost for life sciences and biotech innovation, especially as it relates to improving healthcare delivery,” he said in the release. “One of the hallmarks of our regional innovation ecosystem is the commitment of a diverse set of partners, as reflected in our successes with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and Radford University Carilion.
“If you want to create, invent or discover, you have that opportunity in our region. This project is the latest resource demonstrating that our community can and will support you.”
Nelson believes the project will help the region make a name for itself in the biotechnology field.
“With recent projects and expansions, the region is poised to become synonymous with biotechnology,” he said in the release. “We are thrilled to partner in this project and the connections between regional universities as well as public and private innovation will propel this growth.”
The overall project is expected to generate 125 jobs with an average salary of $80,000 per year over five years with a $1.42 million, $140% return in employment-related revenue on the initial investment from GO Virginia funding.