Two Philly-area groups focused on biotechnology and precision medicine want to win a new federal designation as regional tech and innovation hubs under a U.S. Department of Commerce program that aims to boost the country’s global competitiveness.
The feds plan to name at least 20 regions as tech hubs that will be eligible for $50 million to $75 million in funding to advance industries such as biotechnology, semiconductors, robotics, and artificial intelligence. The awards are supposed to go to regions capable of becoming global centers for R&D, workforce development, commercialization, and manufacturing in a decade.
Here’s an overview of the two Philadelphia-area corsortia that completed the first stage of the application process by the Tuesday deadline:
The Delaware Valley Biopharmaceutical Hub for Enterprises, Local Innovation, Commercialization, and Security, led by the University of Delaware, is focused on accelerating biopharmaceutical innovation and manufacturing in the region. The university in Newark is home to the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals, which last year received an $8 million federal grant to advance its work.
A group led by Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, also includes the University of Delaware, but has a broader approach, said Anthony P. Green, Ben Franklin’s chief scientific officer. “We are focused on what we’re calling an expanded version of precision medicine,” Green said in an interview Wednesday.
Green said the Ben Franklin consortium, which has more than 50 members, would work on supply chain and manufacturing issues in the production of cell and gene therapies and other advanced treatments, as well as on distribution.
It’s one thing to invent new treatments and get them through the now extraordinarily expensive manufacturing process, he said, but “how do you get them to the people who need them?”
Green is also leading Ben Franklin’s efforts to help secure a role in the region for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the Biden administration’s nascent agency for health research. Ben Franklin is an early-stage investment fund that receives money from the state to spur economic development.
The applications due Tuesday were effectively for a chance to apply to be a hub. Green said it’s too soon the say what his group would do with $50 million to $75 million over five years, if it were selected. “Nobody knows what that actual solicitation looks like. We don’t know what they want,” he said.
There’s competition from other Pennsylvania regions. A group led by the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. filed an application focused on communications technologies, and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance wants to create a biomanufacturing hub, according to news releases from Sen. Bob Casey’s office.
