incubators that have lab space,” says Cindy Walker-Peach, director of biosciences at UT’s Austin Technology Incubator. “Usually the focus is on IT, which is all good, but we need working wet lab space to do bio development.”
So Walker-Peach has been involved in a fact-finding mission to research which communities are doing this well and how UT can both help fill the gap and encourage community partners to work with the university. “We’re now putting a call-to-action together,” she says, one that would bring together state and local governments as well as Austin area healthcare institutions.
Last week, the UT System announced an initiative called Clinical Trials XPress, which will coordinate clinical trials at UT institutions across the state. An office will be set up at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Ideally, the program will harness the resources at each institution enabling the trials to be conducted faster. “This program drops most major barriers to university participation in important clinical research that can be translated for better patient care,” says David McPherson, chairman of the department of internal medicine at UTHealth in Houston.
Healthcare’s higher profile began this year in March at South By Southwest, where, for the first time this spring, the festival featured a healthcare track, including a healthIT expo where entrepreneurs, academics, and biotech companies shared strategies on how to build up the Austin community.
Austin’s biotech scene has been spotlighted recently in other ways as well. In the last two months, two biotech companies—XBiotech and Aeglea —have filed for IPOs.
To enable more companies to join them in the IPO pipeline, Xeris’ Kinzell says a robust financing system is needed. “The tech guys are coming in and investing in life sciences deals,” Kinzell says. “The money will eventually follow the rest of it.”
