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Abilene competes for biotech industry

What is the return on Abilene’s tax dollar investment in “science” by the DCOA? (edit/delete)
While diversifying the portfolio of business types supported by our tax dollars, how much money does the nearly $10 million invested in science actually return to Abilene over the next 10 to 25 years?

Chasing bioscience: Abilene competes for biotech industry
(Industrial : Abilene) 8/17/2009 9:15:00 AM

Abilene has invested heavily in an effort to attract life science companies, with construction costs of the Abilene Life Sciences Accelerator on Pine Street estimated at roughly $5 million.

Abilene is working to finish the 20,000-sf accelerator facility that could be completed by December, the only such facility in the West Texas region.

Just this month, the board for the Development Corp. of Abilene voted to move forward with plans to complete lab space throughout the structure. Federal tax credits will cover what could be a $1.2 million addition to the project.

But Richard Burdine, chief executive officer for the Development Corp. of Abilene (DCOA), said he understands that a facility alone is not enough to attract bioscience companies.

“Providing the physical infrastructure is just part of the overall deal,“ Burdine said.

The city’s commitment to biotech springs mainly from the arrival of the Texas Tech School of Pharmacy, which opened its doors just two years ago.

That commitment included about $1.2 million in funding to build the school and about $3 million to help create the school’s Center for Immunotherapeutic Research.

“The purpose there ... was to grow the research piece. That’s been the DCOA’s involvement with the pharmacy school,“ Burdine said.

The research growth would seem to be limited by another factor, however.

According a news release from Texas Tech University, the center will only employ seven faculty members and six other graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and administrative assistants.

Abilene’s first - and so far only - bioscience business has a direct tie to the research center.

The center’s director, Jon Weidanz, founded a company in 2002 called Receptor Logic in Amarillo, which also has a four-year Texas Tech pharmacy campus.

Weidanz brought Receptor Logic with him from Amarillo when he came to Abilene, the move aided by about $2 million in DCOA assistance money.

The company will be the first occupant of the Life Sciences Accelerator.

The next tenants may also come from the research center, depending on which faculty are hired, Burdine said.

The idea is to offer Abilene researchers “a clear path” to commercialization through the accelerator, he said.

But not all research done in Abilene will result in a business.

And there is no formal agreement that would keep Abilene researchers with a solid entrepreneurial idea from deciding to nurture their business elsewhere, Burdine said.

For Texas Tech University, “the most important thing is to get the technology out into the commercial market,“ said David McClure, associate vice chancellor for the office of technology commercialization, adding that “it would be difficult to have a real concrete agreement when we operate in so many places.“

Just as researchers have freedom, the Development Corp. of Abilene will also try to build other institutional relationships, Burdine said.

[Abilene Reporter-News]

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