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Panel: Funding needed to boost life sciences here

Thursday, May 26, 2005
ajones@kalamazoogazette.com
(269) 388-8556

Kalamazoo needs more economic resources to fund its upstart life-sciences industry -- companies that develop products and technologies geared toward improving human health care. It needs to nurture an environment that not only will tolerate but encourage entrepreneurs and executives who try ideas in the high-risk industry, even when they fail. And it needs to get more venture capital firms to put down roots here. So said a six-member panel of experts in the life-sciences, which convened Wednesday morning at Western Michigan University's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences for the second annual economic forum hosted by the Business Review Western Michigan magazine. The panel, which was moderated by Robert Miller, WMU associate vice president for community outreach, and heard by more than 100 area business people, included: Jerry Callahan, business development consultant for the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids. Peter Green, vice president of pharmaceutical sciences for Pfizer Inc. Global Research and Development in Michigan. Donald Parfet, managing director of The Apjohn Group LLC, a Kalamazoo-based firm focused on the early stage development of life-sciences companies. David Zimmerman, co-founder of life-science business Kalexsyn, one of 15 startup biotech companies now housed at the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center at WMU's Business Technology and Research Park. Art Hartman, general manager of Stryker Corp.'s Interventional Pain Unit, now located at the Business Technology and Research Park. George Erickcek, senior regional analyst for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Erickcek, who provided and economic overview for West Michigan, said the key to success for any community in the future will be "changing from what it does well to doing what a global economy needs." With 47 other states targeting life-sciences and biotech development as a priority, Zimmerman said, "We need to bring something different to the table that the other 47 states don't." Callahan said a key to continued success "will be to create a fertile environment for entrepreneurial, management teams." He said this is a place where they have to feel comfortable, even when they fail. Erickcek said this has to be a place that skilled managers don't consider their only job offer while waiting for something better to come along in Chicago or Boston. Pfizer's Green said it is necessary for Michigan to move away from an over-dependence on Pfizer for life-sciences development. He likened the industry in Michigan to a shopping mall in which Pfizer is the biggest store. He said pharmaceutical companies find themselves in a hostile regulatory environment and unless they get more support, their prospects could wither. Saying that only venture capitalists are willing to fund some of the innovative efforts of scientists, Green and Parfet promoted the idea of getting more venture capital firms to put down roots here. Parfet said, "These guys like to be home for dinner." That is, they tend to relocate favorable projects to their hometowns. Zimmerman and Hartman said an effort by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to set up a $2 billion bond proposal to fund the life-sciences here is a good start. But Hartman said it can't just be a one-time thing. It has to be continuous. Asked what is the biggest issue that needs to be addressed, the need for much more funding to get ideas off the ground and move them through to commercialization seemed to find consensus, followed by the need to attract and retain skilled managers to lead companies.