Connecticut is beginning to see the effects of its investment into biotech, the Associated Press reports.
Funds from the nearly $900 million Bioscience Connecticut initiative — which was part of Governor Dannel Malloy's plan to bolster the state's biomedical industry — has gone toward the building of new labs and buildings for tech and biomedical startups, the AP notes. The initiative also attracted a branch of the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine to the UConn campus.
Some 18 new companies are opening up shop in lab in the Cell and Genome Science Building on the University of Connecticut Health campus, the AP says. One new company, Shoreline Biome, which has availed itself of UConn's incubation program, which included help finding venture capital connections, interns, and equipment, is developing a product to help researchers and clinicians map patients' microbiomes.
"We're making the kind of investments that quite frankly should have been made decades ago," Malloy said at the lab ribbon-cutting ceremony last week, according to the AP. "We know that a lot of companies can be started here. Now, we're going to be concentrating on starting them here, having them grow here and keeping them here."