By GREGORY ZELLER //
Broad Hollow Bioscience Park’s new head honcho is an old friend of regional commercialization.
Dan Polner, most recently the incubator advocate for Stony Brook University’s Office of Economic Development, has officially taken the reins as executive director of the bioscience facility. The 38-acre park, located on the Farmingdale State College campus, was launched in 2000 on conjunction with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Research Foundation of the State University of New York.
As the new exec, Polner will manage day-to-day operations of the not-for-profit multi-building complex, which includes 102,500 square feet of state-of-the-art wet-lab and office space in two separate facilities, all designed for early-stage biotechnology companies.
Dan Polner: Experience preferred.
He will also monitor the progress of incubator tenant companies – assessing their specific economic-development needs, providing appropriate resources and otherwise helping them develop and executive their strategic business plans.
It’s familiar ground for Polner, who earned an MBA at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and spent nearly three years as a consultant for the New York Small Business Development Center before hooking up with the SBU Office of Economic Development.
From the go, Polner is in expansion mode, with plans to grow Broad Hollow Bioscience Park from its current roster of six tenants to a working laboratory for biotechs of all shapes and sizes, from the earliest-stage R&D enterprises to advanced companies ready for clinical trials.
“My vision is to expand the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park into an incubation and accelerator platform that will provide multiple forms of support to regional bioscience companies,” the executive director said.
Polner also sees plenty of workforce-development opportunities, with a large supply of young minds on campus and an entire Route 110 Bioscience Corridor to support.
“I want to give students at FSC exposure to potential career opportunities in the bioscience sector,” he noted, “with the goal of creating economic impact and maintaining high-paying bioscience jobs on Long Island.”
Gregory O’Connor: Critical hire.
Now boasting six tenant companies – including regional biotech stalwarts Codagenix and DepYMed, among others – Broad Hollow Bioscience Park has endured a rollercoaster ride over its first two decades.
Current tenants BF Innovation, a skin-health innovator, and 2021 startup Certego Therapeutics are keeping the flame lit, but that’s been challenging since Day One – state funding issues initially slowed the works, according to former Executive Director Greg Blyskal – and especially since previous anchor tenant OSI Pharmaceuticals (by then a subsidiary of Astellas Pharma) pulled out in 2014.
The ambitious and experienced Polner is the right man to take up this challenge, according to Farmingdale State College Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Gregory O’Connor, who noted the new exec moves in at a “critical stage” for Broad Hollow Bioscience Park.
“With Dan’s experience and strategic vision, we are prepared to breathe new life into this program and realize the tremendous potential for the benefit of Farmingdale State College and the regional economy,” O’Connor said in a statement. “Our entire campus community is excited to see what’s next for the Bioscience Park as we chart a course forward for this truly transformative initiative.”
