Mayo's western connection is paying off
BYLINE: Jeff Hansel, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
Nov. 20--Rochester could easily look west for instructions in biotechnology development.
Mayo Clinic officials in Scottsdale, Ariz., already keep Rochester in mind as they court biotech companies. Part of the clinic's long-range plan, said Dr. Victor Trastek, CEO of Mayo in Arizona, is to attract biotech companies to the Arizona campus that might one day be interested in Rochester.
"It's really the power of 'one Mayo Clinic' across the national footprint that really gets exciting," he said.
Partnerships are formed by Mayo in Arizona with companies that have existing Mayo relationships. That in turn, Trastek said, has potential for Mayo campuses elsewhere, including Jacksonville, Fla., and Rochester. So far, Mayo has attracted the following firms to the Collaborative Research Building on the Scottsdale campus:
-- InNexus Biotechnology, Inc., a publicly traded British Columbia company focused on development of "superantibodies" that improve the effectiveness of existing antibodies.
-- The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN), a nonprofit that develops "earlier diagnostics and smarter treatments" by figuring out the genetic makeup of diseases.
-- The Center for Translational Drug Development, an offshoot of TGEN that helps scientists from research institutions, biotech companies and drug companies test the drugs they have under development.
Mayo researchers also are housed in the building. That lets scholars from various fields interact and bounce ideas off one another.
"This is a model, and it's certainly a model that can flow into Rochester," Trastek said. But, he said, it can also flow back and forth between Rochester, Arizona and Jacksonville.
Once a company makes a commitment to occupy laboratory space on one Mayo campus, the door is left open for the company at all of Mayo's sites.
"It becomes easier for them to consider Rochester," Trastek said. "You can see how one can kind of lead to the other."
InNexus recently moved into laboratories in the Mayo Research Building in Scottsdale.
CEO Jeff Morhet said Minnesota is also on a short list of potential sites for the company's planned protein manufacturing plant, which could employ 200 people. Other possible locations include Arizona, Massachusetts and California.
Morhet said InNexus wants a location where it has strong existing partnerships, economic development tools from the host city, available locations for the new plant and proximity to a highly skilled work force.
For major research endeavors, collaborations have become the key, said Dr. Ron Marler, who oversees research alliances at Mayo in Scottsdale.
"We don't believe there is any one entity in the (Scottsdale) Valley that is big enough in and of itself to move something forward on its own," he said. That's why Mayo has partnered with TGEN, Arizona State University and, peripherally, with InNexus.
"A lot of things they're doing probably already exist here," said Rochester's Gary Smith, executive vice president of Rochester Area Economic Development. The city is trying to work "inside out" by working to attract companies to Rochester that already have an existing relationship with Mayo, IBM, the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics or the University of Minnesota.
Smith said Rochester wants to make sure companies that come here fit synergistically into the economy. In other words, what's good for Rochester should also be good for the company.
Who would be a good fit for Rochester? Companies that employ 25 to 50 people, Smith said, that might develop computer products that could be produced elsewhere; pharmaceutical companies that already have production plants in large states like Texas or New York; and research companies.
"We'd rather have 100 of those kinds of companies, rather than one that would employ 500 people," Smith said. IBM's Blue Gene supercomputing project, Mayo Clinic and the Minnesota Partnership, together, make up Rochester's "asset base" to draw biotech companies.
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