The spring thaw means Kansas City’s regional push to bolster its life-sciences sector will take on a new dimension in brick and mortar: Groundwork at the Kansas Biosciences Park’s Olathe Innovation Campus is giving way to construction, and officials in Blue Springs say the Missouri Innovation Park is still on track, despite a few economic curveballs thrown its way.
When the Olathe facility is done late this year or early next year, the area will boast what officials say will be the nation’s first site combining expansion space for existing bioscience companies, a start-up incubator, and university-level academic and research capabilities for bioscience firms.
The 92-acre park is adjacent to about 1,000 more acres that eventually could be developed into a comprehensive bioscience/research juggernaut.
“The goal is to develop educational components, a graduate and post-graduate campus,” said Dan Richardson, CEO of Kansas State University’s Innovation Campus, which will occupy 38 of those 92 acres. In addition to post-doctoral research, Richardson said the campus “will involve both research and education with ongoing certificate programs and graduate degrees. Those programs have been through approval processes at the Kansas Board of Regents.”
The venture is a tangible sign of success in efforts to weave a thick biosciences thread into the fabric of the regional economy.
On the other side of the state line, the envisioned Missouri Innovation Park is proceeding, though not at the pace initially envisioned for the 117-acre site in Blue Springs. The long economic downturn compelled the University of Missouri to scale back on plans for a 32,000-square-foot building at the park, and MU instead has opted to lease 9,000 square feet in a nearby bank building to get the effort started. MU is partnering with the city and the Blue Springs Economic Development Commission to launch the park.
Other developments include the Kansas Bioscience Authority’s Venture Accelerator, an incubator for fledgling bioscience companies, which will be adjacent to the Olathe Innovation Campus. The KBA will dedicate 42 acres for bioscience companies and for start-up companies spun from research at the Innovation Campus.
Tom Thornton, the KBA’s president and CEO, said the Olathe-based organization had committed more than $282 million to bioscience development since it was formed in 2004, and would contribute as much as $30 million more over the rest of this year, including its bioscience park project.
That infusion is bolstering a work force that, in Kansas, is already more than 20,000 strong. According to the Kansas Technology and Enterprise Corp., as many as 13,000 people in are working in bioscience jobs in the state, which is home to 160 bioscience companies. In addition, more than 8,500 researchers and other employees are at work on state university campuses.
In Missouri, the biosciences footprint is even larger. The Missouri Biotechnology Association estimates that private companies employing 20,000 people are conducting $638 million in relevant research, and that 10 research universities, institutions and hospitals employ more than 3,500 people, conducting $550 million worth of life sciences research.
Dan Getman, president of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, says developments on the biosciences front will position the region well for long-term relevance in both human and animal health.
“In terms of progress made, there is a ton of really good stuff going on; that’s one of the reasons I came here,” said Getman, who joined KCALSI last summer after a career with Pfizer, Inc.
Among the paybacks of increased regional collaboration, he said, was the emergence of the animal-health corridor. Collaboration between Kansas State University and MU, Getman said, is driving that growth.
“The animal health-corridor continues to grow and is doing great things,” Getman said. Kansas State’s selection for the $650 million National Agro- and Bio-Defense Facility, he said, “is going to transform Manhattan, Kansas, and the whole region, for that matter.”
The NBAF designation is already leveraging additional successes, Getman noted. The Department of Homeland Security has chosen that area for a new $12 million Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases, and the Agricultural Department’s Arthropod-Borne Animal Disease Research Laboratory is relocating to Manhattan from Wyoming.
Getman noted that as critical mass continued to develop there, it would draw additional interest from the private side, as well, and generate even more regional job growth. 