Alliance for Building Better Medicine receives $1M award

The Alliance for Building Better Medicine — a group of public and private pharmaceutical manufacturers and research organizations in Richmond and Petersburg — will receive a $1 million award from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Richmond-based innovation incubator Activation Capital, which convened the alliance four years ago, announced last week the group would receive an NSF Regional Innovation Engines development award. The alliance members working with the awarded funds include Activation Capital, Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, Virginia Commonwealth University and U.S. Pharmacopeia.

“This will give us $1 million as a coalition to design strategy, to design a business model and the growth trajectory for this alliance in the future,” Chandra Briggman, president and CEO of Activation Capital, told reporters Wednesday. “We’re really excited to report that and show the momentum that’s in the region around this cluster.”

In total, the Alliance for Building Better Medicine has 16 partners and 23 supporting organizations. The group has worked to grow the Richmond-Petersburg-area advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing cluster to address the national need for domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing to have a secure supply chain for medicines. Nearly 80% of the manufacturing facilities that produce active pharmaceutical ingredients are located outside the United States, according to a March 2023 staff report from the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The Alliance for Building Better Medicine previously won a $52.9 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration, announced in September 2022. Local organizations provided $13.6 million in matching funds. In October 2023, the U.S. EDA designated the Richmond-Petersburg metropolitan statistical area an Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Tech Hub, after the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing led the alliance’s application. The 31 inaugural tech hubs are eligible to apply for the next phase of the program, which will invest between $50 million and $75 million in each of the five to 10 designated hubs.

“There is no greater community of people than those of the Richmond-Petersburg advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Receiving one of the NSF Engine Development Awards, after the BBBRC grant award and Tech Hubs designation, is a resounding endorsement to continue the hard work, to push through the obstacles, to not stop until access to essential medicines needed to sustain life and conquer disease is a reality,” Robby Demeria, founding board chair of the Alliance for Building Better Medicine and chief corporate affairs officer for Phlow, said in a statement. “I could not be prouder to stand behind such purposeful, accomplished, brilliant, and dedicated volunteers on a mission to build better medicine.”

Activation Capital, an independent authority of the Virginia government, is an ecosystem development organization that focuses on growing life sciences and other advanced technology entrepreneurs and innovation. The organization also operates the Virginia Bio+Tech Park in Richmond and plans to build a 102,000-square-foot innovation center in the 34-acre park but is seeking an anchor tenant for the facility this spring before it will begin construction.