Innovation center could be boost for life sciences

Kipton Currier envisions Virginia joining other mid-Atlantic states to form a super region for the life sciences industry.

Before that happens, the state must secure some key ingredients missing from the ecosystem, namely sufficient lab space for biotech startups. Activation Capital, the brand name of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority — which promotes the growth of life sciences and advanced technology in the Richmond region — is helping to meet that need through the addition of a $53 million innovation center at the 34-acre VA Bio+Tech Park it manages adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University in downtown Richmond.

“There are companies in the region that are at a very early stage that need space,” says Currier, Activation Capital’s vice president of operations. “What they’re really seeking is community. We will be able to provide [that] community in the new innovation space.”

Three decades in the making, the 107,000-square-foot innovation center, announced in early June, will feature incubator and lab space for startups doing biotech research in fields such as drug discovery, surgical instrumentation and respiratory drug delivery. Plans for the rest of the building include a community café and a 44,500-square-foot space for an anchor tenant, though Currier says the building’s overall size could still change.

“We would love to go higher than four stories for the right anchor tenant,” Currier says.

In a September webinar, Activation Capital President and CEO Chandra Briggman said the anchor tenant, which the organization is actively seeking, could be a life sciences company, advanced pharmaceutical manufacturer or a state entity.

Funded through a $15.75 million federal Build Back Better Regional Challenge award, $10 million in state appropriations, and other sources, the project is set to break ground between April and September 2024 and is scheduled to be completed by 2025.

Jennifer Wakefield, president and CEO of the Greater Richmond Partnership, says the center’s lab and incubator space will fill a gap in the regional life sciences pipeline that starts with intellectual property developed at VCU and ends with pharmaceutical manufacturing in places like Petersburg and Chesterfield County.

“We want it all,” Wakefield says. “I don’t think that executives in the life sciences industry were necessarily taking note of what was happening in the Richmond, Virginia, market, and now they’re starting to sit up and perk up a little bit about what is happening, and [asking], ‘Why was Richmond not on my radar?’”