Turning an idea into a drug that could save thousands of lives takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars.
But with Colorado far behind other states in bioscience funding, the state legislature is debating three bills designed to funnel $15.5 million to the bioscience industry.
The Colorado Bioscience Association is the lead advocate for legislation that, if passed, would help researchers commercialize new ideas, pay for equipment usage and infuse companies with quick cash.
The bills, all awaiting action in the House Appropriations Committee, represent a new strategy for the state’s bioscience industry.
The challenge is to garner bipartisan support for the bills during a time of fiscal restraint among legislators, said Denise Brown, president of the bioscience trade group.
“We realize that with the fiscal situation in Colorado, it’s not realistic to look at economic development in the industry like other states across the country,” she said. “Instead, we’re looking at ways of using relative low-cost programs to fill in some very precise and strategic gaps that we need to support the growth of medical and bioscience development in Colorado.”
House Bill 1360 would provide grants of up to $150,000 to Colorado researchers at local institutions to determine the commercial value of new discoveries. The research centers would be required to match every dollar.
David Allen, senior vice president for the University of Colorado’s Technology Transfer Office, testified in favor of the bill in front of the House Appropriations Committee.
“This would be great for researchers to take their discoveries in a direction towards application,” he said after his testimony.
Other states are devoting greater resources to the bioscience industry:
Rep. Jim Riesberg, D-Greeley, sponsor of HB 1360, said some legislators were lukewarm to the bill but supported it after deliberation.
Colorado counts nearly 350 bioscience companies with about 11,800 workers, according to 2005 figures from the Colorado Bioscience Association.
House Bill 1361 would increase the use of research institutions’ core laboratories by covering some of the fees companies pay to use the labs.
The fees present a hardship to many small bioscience companies that cannot afford to buy their own equipment, and it has led them to take their research outside the state, Brown said.
“It will not only help bioscience but will help our research universities and forge some good ties between them,” said Rep. Gwyn Green, D-Golden, sponsor of HB 1361. “This should (also) encourage research institutions to have more business-friendly contracts.”
House Bill 1308 would give companies up to $350,000 to help offset operating losses. The bill is expected to help eight to 12 companies each year over the next five years. It would cost the state $2.5 million annually.
Richard Duke, founding scientist for Louisville-based GlobeImmune Inc., said that despite recent venture-capital funding totaling more than $46 million, his company would take advantage of HB 1308.
He said that at some point throughout GlobeImmune’s 10-year history, it has been in need of the support all three bills provide.
“We financed everything in the company by grants initially,” Duke said. “At the same time, our company was very dependent on using CU’s Health Sciences facilities.
“We were small and needed to do work on understanding how our vaccine worked. We would have never been able to build those facilities inside the company.”
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
