A two-day conference hosted by the Association of University Related Research Parks (AURP) will bring together representatives from across the country to focus on challenges facing life sciences communities, including those in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Philadelphia.
The AURP Bio Health Caucus will be held June 4-5 in Boston, the day before the annual BIO International Conference. The conference brings together representatives from regions focused on building new research space and supporting life sciences communities.
Representatives from companies, organizations and academic institutions from across the greater Philadelphia region, Research Triangle Park and the BioHealth Capital Region are expected to participate in the AURP event. Among the expected attendees are N.C. State University, TEDCO, Maryland Department of Commerce, George Mason University, Virginia Bio, Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, Shaw University, UNC Chapel Hill, Montgomery County and more. Rich Bendis, president and chief executive officer of BioHealth Innovation will also deliver an address during the event.
Bryan Darmody, AURP Chief Strategy Officer, said the AURP event provides participants with an event focused on practical issues facing science, associated facilities and how states can use their resources to help create those spaces. He told BioBuzz the conference gives participants a chance to come together and discuss the issues that are so important to their regions before taking part in the bigger-picture focus of the annual BIO conference.
This year, Darmody said the BioHealth Caucus is bringing together the five states who won grant awards from the $1 billion federal Build Back Better Regional Challenge that is designed to boost economic recovery caused by the pandemic in communities that include those grappling with decades of disinvestment. Participants in this discussion include winners from Virginia and North Carolina who will share their experiences with the grant program.
“There are people who will want to learn about how they did the things they did,” Darmody said.
In 2022, the Richmond-Petersburg region of Virginia received more than $52 million through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. The funds will support the alliance’s goal of scaling the region’s advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing and R&D cluster in order to address the national need for quality, affordable essential medicines.
A consortium of public and private organizations in North Carolina led by NCBiotech won a Phase 2 Build Back Better grant totaling nearly $25 million. The grant will be used to support multiple projects, including workforce diversification led by North Carolina Central University’s Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise, as well as a community engagement program led by NCBiotech that will connect high school seniors in multiple parts of the state with free life sciences manufacturing training.
Although AURP’s BioHealth Caucus is a two-day affair, it has a packed agenda. Some of the topics that will be discussed that day include:
- Economic impact of the biotech industry in the U.S.
- New biotech hubs growing in VA, NC, OK, MO, and NH
- Building the biotechnician workforce
- Bio innovation impact from the federal multi-billion-dollar CHIPS + Science Act
- Significance of the Bayh-Dole Act and life science IP to keep the U.S. competitive
- Bio manufacturing in space
- Award winning life science incubators, accelerators, and labs
- Importance of the business press covering the biotechnology community
- NIH funding for small business bio hubs
- Emerging role of quantum computing in drug discovery
Ulyana Desiderio, the Director of Life Sciences at the Maryland Department of Commerce, who will serve on a panel during the conference, said she looks forward to “celebrating the strengths” of Maryland’s life sciences ecosystem at the BioHealth Caucus.
“As home to most federal agencies relevant to the life sciences, coupled with our public and private resources, Maryland is proud to support our innovators from bench to bedside and beyond,” she said.
Likewise, Arti Santhanam, Executive Director at the Maryland Innovation Initiative program at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, expressed her excitement about the BioHealth Caucus and sharing some of the success the Initiative has seen bringing together regional and national assets that accelerate technology, commercialization and venture creation within Maryland.
“At the AURP health caucus I hope to share our more recent endeavors in regional partnerships, including with the Henry Jackson Foundation to nurture, accelerate and scale technologies from bench to bedside,” she said.
