Contract laboratory services is another area that would be
great for West Virginia to explore. Companies ranging from
pharmaceutical giants to well-funded startups need to have
experiments run, and they regularly contract out billions of
dollars of work to companies overseas as well as in the U.S.
There is a backlog of work at many of these contract research
laboratories, and there is incredible demand for U.S.-based
labs to do the work. West Virginia’s higher education institu-
tions graduate thousands of students who could be employed
in these labs, and we have an abundance of affordable space
to build them.
WVE: What kinds of bioscience research are taking
place in West Virginia?
BB: Companies are doing research in cancer, new ways to
diagnose strokes, new manufacturing processes for chemicals
and compounds, sophisticated imaging systems for exploring the
structure of the brain, new ways to track and more humanely
manage animals in research facilities, new drug delivery tech-
nologies, replacements for opioids, human/machine interfaces
that will enable lifelike and more useful prosthetics, new surgical
instruments and devices that let patients recover faster from
major surgery, better ways to manufacture ocular implants
for patients who have cataract surgery and new ways to study
how microgravity impacts humans so we can better prepare
astronauts for long-term space missions. The breadth of work
that West Virginians are doing is both amazing and humbling.
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
WVE: Tell us about the important role researchers and
entrepreneurs play in this industry.
BB: The researchers and their transformational research are
the starting point for nearly all of this. Companies that are
going to get started in this space are very likely to spring from
the research that is happening at our colleges and universities.
In order to help that research emerge, we either need to have
a researcher who is also an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur
who has some experience in starting and growing life sciences
companies. West Virginia has an abundance of entrepreneurial
talent in many industries, and we are working on building that
bench in the life sciences by both training researchers and re-
cruiting people to come work at our state’s academic institutions.
WVE: What kind of support would you like to see this
industry receive, and where do you think it needs to
come from?
BB: We would like to see greater involvement from policy
leaders in West Virginia. Several, if not all, of the surrounding
states have developed programs and allocated funding to
promote research and commercialization in the bioscience
industry. This comes in many forms, including tax credits to
offset investments in startup companies, venture funds to spur
new companies to the next level and matching fund programs
for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business
Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.