NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – New York State plans to invest $49.7 million in a wide range biotechnology-focused economic development projects with funding going to research institutes, incubators, and businesses throughout the state.
Funded through New York's Regional Economic Development Council Initiative, the awards largely support biomedical research, but also will fund agricultural biotech and bioenergy projects, the New York Biotechnology Association said today.
The Roswell Park Cancer Institute Genome project is one of the recipients of funding and will receive $5.1 million. Other awards will provide $4 million to develop the Jacobs Institute Center for Innovation in Medicine, a medical device prototyping facility at the Buffalo Niagara, Medical Campus; $2 million to fund construction of a new cancer drug testing facility at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island; and $5 million to expand a partnership between the University of Rochester and IBM and a new Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation in the Finger Lakes region.
In the capital region, the state funding will include $2 million for an RNA Institute for Biomedical and Translational Research; $1 million for the Biotechnology Training Center and the Capital Region Biotechnology Corridor; and $950,000 to create the New York Capital Research Alliance.
The central New York area will receive $2 million to complete the Central New York Biotechnology Research Center, and $3.6 million for the BioTech Park at Kennedy Square in Onondaga County. The Finger Lakes region will receive $7 million to support the Seneca AgBio Green Energy Park for renewable energy, enhanced agriculture, and environmental sustainability. The mid-Hudson Valley area was awarded $5 million to develop the Biotech Incubator Center for Advanced Research at New York Medical College.
Other grants were awarded for pharmaceutical research projects, a bioenergy plant, and materials research.
"These investments will enable further growth in a field that supports some 250,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs, and contributes over $32 billion a year to the state's economic output," NYBA Director Nathan Tinker said in a statement.
"NYBA worked closely with Regional Councils across the state to identify and support projects that would create jobs and continue to nurture New York's growing bioscience industry, and we actively advocated for this funding. We encourage the State to continue to invest in the biosciences, a sector that creates jobs; develops important products in bio-pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and industry; and drives economic development."