State's life-sciences cutback puts a hurt on biotechnology

BYLINE: Rachel Melcer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Feb. 9--Missouri business leaders are reeling at the prospect of losing state funds for six university facilities seen as vital in making the state a biotech powerhouse.

They vowed to fight a change made Wednesday in an education spending bill that slashed $113 million earmarked to build life-science research centers and business incubators. Republican members of the Senate Education Committee, who comprise a majority, said they would not fund the facilities because they could house controversial embryonic stem cell research.

"We are greatly disappointed. (But) does this mean we've raised the white flag and surrendered? Absolutely not. It means we double-down our efforts" to convince lawmakers of the projects' importance to economic development, said Kelly Gillespie, executive director of the Missouri Biotechnology Association trade group.

A lot is at stake, said Marcia Mellitz, president of the Center for Emerging Technologies, a St. Louis biotech business incubator.

"They're really putting the brakes on economic development in the state," she said. "The implications of this are horrendous."

Without the facilities, "we cannot begin to compete with the rest of the country, much less the rest of the world, in the highest (economic) growth area today, which is biosciences."

CET is counting on $5.5 million, funneled through the University of Missouri at St. Louis, to jump-start fundraising on an estimated $25 million expansion. The incubator's labs are full, and demand is increasing from academic researchers who want to start companies so that their discoveries can reach consumers and patients, Mellitz said.

Also cut from the bill was $85 million for a health sciences center at the University of Missouri at Columbia, $5.5 million to assist startup companies in the Cortex business corridor of midtown St. Louis, and business incubators in Kansas City and Columbia.

Industry leaders have worked for years to improve the state's reputation and commercial operations in biotechnology, building on a base of internationally renowned academic research and corporations including Pfizer Inc. and Monsanto Co.

The vast majority of Missouri's biotech work is in plant science, medical devices and treatments unrelated to embryonic stem cell research. But it all is caught up in the controversy, said John Gardner, vice president of research and economic development for the University of Missouri.

Gardner said the university would accept a compromise that links funding with restrictions against conducting embryonic stem cell research in the resulting facilities.

Mike Mills, deputy director of the state Department of Economic Development, said Gov. Matt Blunt's administration will fight to restore funding.

Even without the half-dozen projects at stake, the governor sees value in the overall legislation, which calls for spending $335 million from the sale of assets of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.

The administration will work to build a broad, bipartisan coalition to restore the slashed projects, Mills said. "Not succeeding is not an option."

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