In order to get funding, it has been obvious to me for some time that I'd have to get a bill passed through the legislature here. Now that the elections have past, I'm seeking sponsors for such a bill. Unfortunately upon hearing this Jennifer Fox (OTRADI) has pulled her support. In fairness to her, OTRADI has recently started an expansion project, increasing their capacity by 4 companies (which is already full) and reducing their waiting list to 3-4 companies. In doing so, she sees a changed landscape and OCARI as competing for limited state resources.
This is unfortunate. OCARI was never about meeting today's demand for laboratory space. If funded in 2015 by Oregon, building the facility for OCARI would not be complete until sometime 2018 or early 2019. OTRADI's expansion just means that the next company that wants space gets added to a shorter waiting list. Since a science start-up, say a pharmaceutical company, typically requires 1-5 years of incubation before they have grown enough to leave an incubator, that waiting list that could take years to advance. In other words there is still more demand than capacity (which is 20-30 science companies for the entire state of Oregon). Besides increasing the state's capacity, OCARI would increase the state's capabilities by adding start-up chemical workspace (which is extremely limited here) and science co-working space for the 85% of non-academic scientists who may wish to prototype an idea, or for small businesses that need a small amount of labspace but can't not afford to add it to their existing facilities (Polaris Battery Laboratories comes to mind).
So build OCARI, which will take 3 years, and increase capacity by up to 24 companies plus a lot of enties in the co-working space. What is the worse case scenario? It takes a few years after construction is complete for the state to grow into the new capacity. In another 3 years the research at the Knight Cancer and Knight Cardiovascular Institutes should be mature enough to start spinning-off start-ups which, if the status quo is maintained, will have no place to go within Oregon. So how likely is it that both OCARI and OTRADI will have vacancies once OCARI is built?
The other limiting growth factor for science start-ups within Oregon, is the lack of access to capital. The good news is that the state is considering several proposals to address this issue.
While Jennifer Fox has retracted her support, I've recently gotten this letter of support from David Eastman and David Farrell at Gamma Therapeutics.
