Building support

Gov. Glenn Youngkin made headlines last December when he announced a $90 million-plus pitch to launch “Virginia’s Research Triangle.”

Initially envisioned as a cooperative initiative among Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, the triangle was expanded into more of a rhombus following the addition of Old Dominion University to the research network during the 2024 General Assembly session.

If approved by the legislature and Youngkin, a total of $96.4 million would be divided among the four public research universities: $46.5 million for U.Va.’s Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology; $31 million for Virginia Tech’s Roanoke-based Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC; $14.9 million for VCU’s Medicines for All Institute; and $4 million for ODU, which a university spokesperson says plans to develop its “digital patient model,” a “simulation-based environment” for virtually testing treatments and therapies. (As of this story’s press deadline, the budget was still in negotiations.)

This would help establish a biotechnology, life sciences and pharmaceutical manufacturing network in Virginia, partnering research universities with the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority to collaborate on commercialization and startup support.

It’s also hoped that the statewide research network will help spur the creation and expansion of Virginia businesses as well as attract outside companies to locate here. This endeavor comes on the heels of several developments at each hub of the proposed research network.

In December 2023, U.Va. broke ground on the $350 million Manning biotech institute. Expected to open in late 2026, it received a $100 million gift in January 2023 from its namesakes, Charlottesville-based PBM Capital Chairman and CEO Paul Manning and his wife, Diane.

In October 2023, the Richmond-Petersburg region was selected as one of 31 federally designated tech hubs, allowing the region to compete for up to $70 million in federal grants as it focuses on strengthening advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing.

And in September 2023, Roanoke’s Fralin Institute announced it had received a $50 million commitment to support cancer and neuroscience research from a foundation established by the estate of Richmond philanthropist Bill Goodwin’s late son, Hunter.

Frank Gupton, CEO of the Medicines for All Institute at VCU, and a co-founder of Richmond-based pharmaceutical company Phlow, compares Youngkin’s proposal to North Carolina’s Research Triangle — “except we’re doing more translational work, as opposed to basic science.

“If U.Va., Virginia Tech or VCU comes up with a new innovative drug, we’ll have a platform that we’ll be able to scale up and do the clinical trials for. It’s going to be an end-to-end capability,” Gupton says. “My hope is that we’ll be working together and leveraging our collective resources to be able to do some really meaningful research and development that will benefit all the universities.”

Joe Benevento, CEO and president of Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp., VIPA’s nonprofit operations arm, and formerly Virginia’s deputy secretary of commerce and trade, says the commonwealth’s proposed research network will attract startups seeking access to research facilities, wet labs, testing space and equipment.

“Startups really can have the opportunity to collaborate and partner with world-class university researcher talent [and] build off and leverage that IP and know-how to accelerate commercial development, attract growth investment and enhance market delivery,” Benevento says.

High tech, high wages

Erin Burcham, president of Verge, an umbrella organization for the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council and Roanoke’s Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP), says that additional biotech research funding will increase opportunities for biotech companies, growing the state’s economy.

“Biotech in our region is transforming the economy in a really impactful way,” says Burcham. “We’re going from a very industrial town that was really focused on Norfolk Southern and trains to more of an innovation economy where we’re focused on high-wage, high-tech, advanced science-type companies.”

Paul Manning sees the capacity for collaboration between the research network’s hubs. While VCU will continue focusing on large-scale pharma manufacturing, U.Va. and Virginia Tech will use the new state funding to move research from labs to patient treatments. Charlottesville Economic Development Director Chris Engel has said that the Manning institute alone could support a bioscience cluster of about 75 companies and 3,000 employees.

“There’s so much to be done, and we are in a revolution in biotechnology right now. There won’t be much overlap [between hubs], and I think the research that’s going to be done at every institution will help all,” says Manning, adding that the quality of research facilities will motivate “people and companies … [to] start moving here to set up their operations in Virginia because we have such a deep bench of scientists that will be able to provide support.”

Dr. K. Craig Kent, CEO of UVA Health and executive vice president for health affairs at U.Va., also thinks startups will be drawn to the research network.

“Biomanufacturing is really expensive. It costs a lot of money to develop these facilities,” Kent says. “Part of the draw is that smaller companies trying to get into phase 1 drug trials don’t have the money to build their own facilities. The research triangle could partner with these companies and grant access to their facilities.”

Kent says this initiative will attract companies outside Virginia while retaining existing biotech startups.

“As long as we have the ability to help those companies translate and run clinical trials, they’ll stay here in Virginia,” Kent says. “If we have a critical mass of intellect, researchers that do this kind of work, companies want to associate with those individuals. They want to be around them. They want to partner with them in their own research.”

He compares the draw that Virginia’s research network will have to that of Boston, which attracts startups and researchers to its large number of top-level universities and biotech companies with an associated talent pool. But Virginia, he says, can offer researchers a much lower cost of living and higher quality of life.

Marc Nelson, Roanoke’s economic development director, says he’s already seen a transformational change in his city from the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, which was founded in 2010 by Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic.

The institute “really helps from an economic development standpoint … [to] create really lucrative and innovative jobs,” Nelson says. “We’re just getting started, and Fralin Biomedical and Carilion have really led the way. Now you’re seeing the partners come up behind them and give them the support structure they need.”

And the research network isn’t the only new proposed state initiative that could help spur the creation of biotech startups. In collaboration with Richmond-based innovation incubator Activation Capital and CvilleBioHub, a nonprofit that works to boost Charlottesville-area biotech businesses, Verge has applied for a GO Virginia grant that would total roughly $15 million. The funding would support health care innovations at an earlier stage in the creation process.

“These three organizations are very passionate about identifying additional capital through grants and public-private funding to support the growing, commercialized biotech side of the state, and doing it hand-in-hand with the universities so we can nurture intellectual property,” says Burcham of Verge. “Entrepreneurial organizations are responding to the money coming in for biotech research and really trying to build out a holistic ecosystem for those startups to thrive in Virginia.”