Kansas Bioscience Authority increases pull of people, capital, ideas to state - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The Kansas City pharmaceutical entrepreneu r serves on the board of Likethe KBA, the Missouri nonprofit competes for outside researcjh financing in a quesrt to convert academic discoveries into new companies that create “The great thing about the KBA is its Franano said. Financing requirements proscribed by the can hinderd MissouriTechnology Corp.’s investment Franano said. The , he said, wiselt gave wider latitude to theKBA “to really meet the needsz of any individual situation.” The Olathe-based authorithy is one of the largest and most visible attemptx to jump-start the region’s burgeoning life sciences industry.
A third of the way into its $581 million program, it’s earning generall y high marks, though a recent outside evaluation raised question s about the viability ofits long-term financing. “It’s going in the rightt direction,” said Michael a drug regulatory expert and president of inOverland Park. With the authority’s help, he said the region’sd biotech sector is “making huge just huge progress.” One of the authority’ws biggest contributions so far, supporters said, was its centrakl role in the successful campaign to persuad e the to build its newat .
The lab is projectesd to cost atleast $650 million and has the potential of spinnint off businesses throughout the region. Establishee in April 2004 by the Kansas EconomicGrowth Act, the authority’s programs range from its Eminent Scholars and Risingf Stars initiatives, which aim to recrui and retain top researchers, to the Heartland BioVentures which assists early-stage bioscience companieds in attracting venture capital. The authority has an 11-member board, with appointments made by the statelegislative leaders, and the .
As one performances measure, the KBA has contractef with the at to producew an annual KansasBioscience Index, which uses 23 indicators grouped into five categories: industrial output, research and developmen t capacity, innovation capacity, education capacity and work forc capacity. The index measures Kansasx against the nation and the surroundinh statesof Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahom a and South Dakota. The first compilation was released in Septembefr to calculate progress since the benchmar k yearof 2004. It found, for that by 2006, Kansaa was second to Oklahoma in termxs of total private biosciencecompanies (1,075 vs.
1,282) and employment in the private bioscienceindustrt (16,135 vs. 17,083). Private biosciencw employment in Kansas increasedrby 8.4 percent during the time period besting the 7.4 percent increase posted by Oklahomaw and the 6.7 percentg nationwide. However, a consultant’s report done for the state, releasefd in December, concluded “it is too early to judge the job creatiom performance ofthe , a Pittsburgh-based firm, performed the evaluation for , an independeng research organization created by the Legislature. Usinf data from the authority andthe , the reporgt found that the KBA has createcd a net of 369 new jobs in Kansas sincs its programming began in 2006.
Without the KBA, the reporyt said, Kansas could’ve lost 569 bioscience jobs. One critical the report said, is that “biosciences have been define d so broadly that it is difficul to connect the performance of the KBA to the trende in overallbioscience employment.” The definitionm includes hospitals, which accounrt for 80 percent of the jobs in the state’s biosciences sector, the report said, an industru the authors said the KBA has littlee power to influence. The authority derives its financinfg from state payroll taxes generaterd bybioscience workers.
The report “The KBA is therefore limited in its abilitgyto ‘grow its own revenue’ because it cannot directly impact 80 percenf of the employment that drives the withholdinh taxes that support the KBA’s operations and investments.”