It’s going to take more than just a government initiative for New York to forge an identity as a top commercial hub for life sciences. It’s going to take great ideas, entrepreneurs taking risks, developers making space their companies can grow in, and investors gambling on their success.
Some of these things are already happening, which is why New York has biotech momentum to build on. Some $1.15 billion in government cash, through two city and state initiatives, has been committed to New York’s biotech future. Startups are forming. Academics and institutions in the city are coming up with creative and collaborative ways to turn their programs into companies. Venture investors are looking for deals. And more incubators are sprouting up, putting more space for startups on line in Manhattan.
At “New York Biotech Seizes the Momentum” on May 31 at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, we’re featuring a group of people that could play a key role, over the next 5 to 10 years, in the type of biotech hub the Big Apple becomes. These people include: former National Institutes of Health director Harold Varmus, one of the advisors for New York City’s LifeSciNYC plan; Mike Foley and Nadim Shohdy, the directors of two unorthodox Manhattan-based programs—the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute and NYU Langone Medical Center’s Office of Therapeutics Alliances—that are helping to churn out experimental drugs that lead to companies; Melinda Richter, the head of the JLabs incubator network, which will open; Jason Park of Flagship Pioneering, who will help determine the investments made, at long last, by the NYCEDC’s $150 million biotech fund; startup entrepreneurs, academics, and more. Combined, it’ll make for a series of interactive chats, from a variety of different perspectives, about the present and future for New York biotech.
We’ve just released the full agenda, which you can check out here, and you can get your tickets here (and save some cash if you register within the next few days). Looking forward to seeing you all on May 31.
