A new 10-year $1.1 billion initiative to enhance Maryland?s bioscience industry will “produce thousands and thousands of new jobs,” Gov. Martin O?Malley said Monday.
O?Malley announced the initiative in front of hundreds of doctors, scientists and researchers at one of the state?s hubs of biomedical innovation ? Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he toured the stem cell research labs that have received some state grants.
“Bioscience is, in many ways, the key to unlocking our future economic potential as a state,” O?Malley said. He did not take questions from reporters, so it was left to the chief of the Department of Business and Economic Development to answer how he could make promises for programs and funding that extend four years beyond even a possible second term.
“It?s a challenge” from the governor, DBED Secretary David Edgerley said. “It?s a direction” for the state to take, though “he can certainly influence what the state will spend” in coming years.
The $1.1 billion in state money is expected to leverage $6.3 billion in other public and private spending in the life sciences industry, but it is not clear how much of the state?s investment would be new appropriations, or retargeting of existing funding.
For instance, the $1.1 billion includes $219 million in grants over the next decade for stem cell research, with O?Malley pledging to request $20 million a year. Supporters of stem cell funding hailed the new pledge, but it is actually $5 million less than what O?Malley sought in the past two years.
O?Malley also promised to create the Maryland Biotechnology Center, a new one-stop shop to “consolidate various state, academic and private sector ventures” to support entrepreneurship. Edgerley said some of the $6 million promised would likely involve a restructuring of current DBED programs.
O?Malley also promised to:
– Quadruple the state?s biotech investment tax credit from $6 million to $24 million over the next four years
– Expand the technology incubator network, which already has 19 centers growing startup companies around the state
– Double spending on commercializing research innovation and patents by the Technology Development Corp., a quasi-public agency
– Increase state investment in nanotechnology, the tiniest form of technology
– Enhance the DBED venture capital funding by $152 million.
Hopkins, already the largest private employer in Maryland, has been a leader in technology transfer, and in the last two years, 12 companies have been spun off from research at the university, according to Aris Melissaratos, senior adviser to the president for economic development.
