New Boston lab may stir up area bio-business
The Central Massachusetts life sciences industry may get a lift from the construction of major bioresearch labs in Boston set to go on stream in the next three years.
Regulators earlier this month gave final approval to a biosafety level 4 facility to be built by Boston University in the South End neighborhood. The federal government will kick in $128 million to complete the lab where researchers will work with some of the deadliest diseases known to man. It will be only the fourth lab of its kind in the U.S.The news comes on the heels of a $15 million federal grant to Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton announced last year. That money will fund construction of a 30,000-square-foot research center housing biosafety level 2 and level 3 labs. Researchers there plan to study the treatment of food and waterborne diseases that are frequently transmitted by animals.
It’s unclear what the exact benefits of the Boston construction would be. BU has not looked formally into the economic ripples the lab might make outside of Boston proper, but Kevin O’Sullivan, president of the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives in Worcester, anticipates both tangible and intangible benefits from both of the new labs.
One possible benefit could be the lab outsourcing some research work to MetroWest and Worcester area companies, he says.
"But it’s a bigger picture here," O’Sullivan says. "The biomedical economy is really built on confidence, and when you get a facility like this, it adds to the luster of Massachusetts as a leader in the field. When we go forward, it just adds another bullet to the holster. We all benefit from this statewide."
Kenneth J. St. Onge can be reached at kstonge@wbjounal.com
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments