“A lot of times when these companies are looking to partner, they’re not just looking to partner for real estate, they’re looking to partner for that clinical access, that clinical know-how,” said Dr. Janani Reisenauer, medical director for research and innovation in Mayo’s Department of Business Development. “So, what we’re going to do is really put a flag in the Midwest as a major center for shared lab space and health care innovation.”
The feedback from the 2022 survey went beyond diagnosing a lack of awareness about what Rochester has to offer.
The results also offered a prescription: The city needed to build affordable turnkey lab space to attract and retain the types of biotech companies it imagined when it pushed for DMC, the 20-year economic development initiative backed by $585 million in public funding.
“We now know there are companies out there that want to locate in proximity to Mayo Clinic, but don’t have $2 million and 18 months to build out their own lab,” Flynn said. “Because they tend to be operating on research dollars or venture investment dollars that have pretty short runways.”
To solve for that, the state board overseeing DMC voted in May to allocate $8 million for the lab space, which would be located on the third floor of Two Discovery Square, a 121,000-square-foot health science campus downtown.
The funding will support the outer shell of the lab, with Mayo putting up an additional $3.1 million to stock it with new technology.
