Rhode Island House Speaker Joe Shekarchi is putting his support behind a new effort to build the biotech and life science sector in the state.
Talk about emulating Massachusetts’ success with these sectors has persisted for years, along with a relatively modest presence of companies here that make medical devices and drugs and create new ways of diagnosing and treating disease.
During a briefing at the Rhode Island Foundation on Wednesday, Shekarchi and other speakers cautioned that building the biotech and life sciences requires overcoming institutional rivalries and other obstacles. But they said the industry offers vast potential for Rhode Island.
“And if we bring everybody together we can nurture this industry, grow this industry, and most importantly — we talk about the jobs, the economy and everything else — but we’re talking about therapies that can help people,” Shekarchi said. “We have the ability to do that here in Rhode Island.”
A report prepared at Shekarchi’s request by consultant Damon Cox recommends creating a new quasi-public state agency, the Rhode Island Biotech and Life Sciences Hub, to spearhead the effort. It calls for seeding the hub’s first two years of operation with $50 millon, $30 million of which would go into a fund to promote early stage biotech and life science companies, and $17 million for grants to boost workforce training. The consultant’s findings followed an earlier report.
The recommendations call for Rhode Island’s economic-development agency, Rhode Island Commerce, to select a board of directors for the biotech-life sciences hub “comprised of various professions within the sector.” It estimates the salary between $225,000 and $250,000 for a newly created position of president/CEO of the hub.
Shekarchi said the House of Representatives will review the recommendations when lawmakers return to the Statehouse in January.
According to the consultant’s report, Rhode Island has more than 400 biotech and life sciences companies.
Brown University is moving ahead with plans for an integrated life sciences building in Providence’s Jewelry District, and the state plans for a new health lab in the I-195 District.
Nonetheless, Rhode Island Foundation President/CEO Neil Steinberg, who is retiring next year, said that for all of his 45 years working in Rhode Island, the goal of a more robust biotech-life sciences sector has remained elusive.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org
