Panel: Central Mass. is becoming its own biotech cluster
PHOTO/TMS AERIAL SOLUTIONS
The Worcester Business Development Corp. is turning the 44 acres around the former Worcester State Hospital into The Reactory, a biomanufacturing campus.
Thanks to several decades of hard work and planning and the growth of life science business parks in Worcester, the biotech cluster in Central Massachusetts is becoming known on the world stage, according to biotech advocates and executives.
“You look across the commonwealth of Massachusetts: Who knows how to do this? Which region as the native expertise, history, culture and understanding of how to manufacture complicated items?” asked Travis McCready, president and CEO of the state-backed Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, rhetorically. “One region came up over and over again: Central Massachusetts and the city of Worcester.
McCready, public officials and industry experts spoke about the region’s advancements at a June 10 event sponsored by Worcester-based Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives.
The UMass Medicine Science Park next to UMass Memorial Medical Center and UMass Medical School is fully occupied, incubator Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives is doubling its space at Gateway Park and the planned biomanufacturing park – to be named The Reactory – at the former Worcester State Hospital site is nearing construction.
WuXi Biologics is planning a 100,000-square-foot drug manufacturing facility at the park and is negotiating with landlord Worcester Business Development Corp.
Next step: clinical trials
McCready said he was tasked by Gov. Charlie Baker four years ago with giving him an honest assessment of the state’s life sciences industry and the need for continued biotech advocacy work.
The assessment was the state still needed to work to help the industry, and one of the most critical needs identified by the assessment was manufacturing, McCready said.
Worcester's historical manufacturing strength helped set in motion the work of several key agencies in securing the 44 acres of vacant state hospital land for The Reactory, which eventually resulted in the state to selling the land to WBDC in 2017 and 2018.
Worcester’s other biotech successes like Gateway Park and the biotech firms like Abbvie choosing Worcester were hailed, but work still needs to be done to beef up the industry’s workforce, build more affordable housing for those workers and create the infrastructure for those manufacturing and clinical testing operations, officials said.
Lisa Olson, the divisional vice president for Abbvie, overseeing the Chicago company’s Worcester site near UMass, said the region now needs the infrastructure to support the next step of drug discovery: clinical trials.
With Worcester’s biotech firms now able to develop and manufacture the drugs, there’s a critical need for local institutions to collaborate to allow for local human trials.
“If contract organizations can grow in the Worcester area surrounding this biotech innovation and manufacturing innovation … you’re just going to build an environment like we’ve seen happen in Cambridge,” she said.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments