By GREGORY ZELLER //
Good news for Long Island’s impressive biotech-research corridor: New York State has opened a new Biodefense Commercialization Fund designed to speed promising life-science research to market.
Managed by the Empire State Development Corp. and announced Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, the $40 million fund will accelerate development and commercialization of biotechnology innovations via competitive grants – up to $4 million each for companies developing new diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, and up to $500,000 for research institutions doing the same.
Numerous Long Island biotechs fit the bill, along with Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and other bastions of scientific exploration.
The grants will be doled out by an executive committee representing the New York State Department of Health, Columbia University, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and multiple venture funds, with a particular emphasis on “innovations with the highest potential for commercial viability,” according to the governor’s office.
Kathy Hochul: Innovation is infectious.
New weapons against COVID-19 and its variants will also earn special attention, noted Hochul, adding that it’s “incumbent upon us to use the lessons we learned (from COVID) to better prepare for the future.”
“The Biodefense Commercialization Fund will help the next generation of startups and early-stage companies combat infectious diseases while creating jobs and investment in New York’s life-science industry,” the governor said.
New York State Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker called investments in health and medical research – including work at the Wadsworth Center, the Department of Health’s Albany-based, research-intensive public-health laboratory – “critical.”
“The Biodefense Commercialization Fund not only complements the groundbreaking work being done at the Wadsworth Laboratory, but it offers opportunities to the companies and individuals who share New York’s commitment to public health,” Zucker said in a statement.
While the healthcare component is obviously critical, the Biodefense Commercialization Fund – part of the state’s $650 million initiative to create a world-class, statewide life-sciences research cluster, announced in 2016 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo – is just as important as an economic driver, according to Hochul.
“We want to ensure that New York is where these groundbreaking companies start and operate, and that our state is at the center of the search for solutions to the world’s most pressing problems,” the governor said.
