By GREGORY ZELLER //
A major-league anchor tenant will breathe new life into Broad Hollow Bioscience Park.
The not-for-profit facility on the Farmingdale State College campus, designed primarily to support early-stage STEM companies in need of wet laboratory space, will welcome The Estée Lauder Companies this spring, with the New York City-based multinational manufacturer relocating “select teams of employees” to the biotechnology park beginning this spring.
The new anchor tenant has inked a five-year lease to occupy roughly 40,000 square feet of laboratory and office space and intends to create more than 30 new research-and-development-related positions specific to the site, according to a joint statement from the college and the company.
The collaboration will also include an “applied learning initiative,” set to begin later this year, according to the statement. The initiative, primarily intended to prepare Farmingdale State science and engineering students for potential R&D roles with Estée Lauder, is slated to include collaborative research activities for students and faculty, scholarships, company internships and adjunct academic opportunities for Estée Lauder leaders.
John Nader: Extraordinary alliance.
The “strategic alliance” marks the first time the company will physically occupy space at an academic institution. Estée Lauder already maintains a large R&D operation combining basic science and advanced technology – with a focus on skincare, makeup and fragrances – in nearby Melville.
The alliance is also a major coup for Broad Hollow Bioscience Park, which first opened in 2000 as a collaboration between Farmingdale State, the Research Foundation for the State University of New York and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
While some resident companies have successfully leveraged the bioscience park’s ample resources and fulfilled its commercialization promise, things have not always gone smoothly for the ambitious biotech effort. The park boasts 20 developable acres, but so far includes only two buildings – and has struggled at times to fill the combined 102,500 square feet of modern administrative offices and state-of-the-art lab spaces.
Adding an R&D-focused anchor tenant with global reach is a great get for the Farmingdale biotech hub and the Long Island innovation economy at large, according to Farmingdale State College President John Nader.
“This extraordinary public-private alliance brings a premier corporate partner to our campus and will lead to scholarship support and collaboration opportunities for Farmingdale State College students and faculty,” Nader said Thursday. “This is a victory for Long Island, the college and the region’s bioscience corridor.”
The applied-learning component that will directly benefit the college’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics students is still taking shape, according to Farmingdale State Executive Vice President and Provost Laura Joseph, who noted “[the] goal is to identify areas for partnership that will complement the mission” of the college’s STEM programs.
“We are working with The Estée Lauder Companies to develop opportunities to support applied-education programs for students and faculty research,” Joseph said. “We expect that opportunities to engage faculty in synergistic research activities will be promising, especially across bioscience, chemistry and manufacturing, mechanical (and) electrical engineering technology.”
Estée Lauder, which has maintained Long Island operations for parts of five decades and has a “strong history of hiring SUNY graduates,” according to the joint statement, is “very proud to collaborate with Farmingdale State College and SUNY” as a Broad Hollow Bioscience Park tenant, noted Lisa Napolione, the company’s senior vice president for global research and development.
“Our scientists, researchers, engineers and product developers thrive on combining science, technology and creativity to formulate transformative, prestige beauty products,” Napolione said in a statement. “Our collaborations with universities around the world help us stay on the cutting edge and advance our commitment to scientific excellence and delivering the highest quality, breakthrough prestige beauty products to consumers.”
