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The babies are growing up.

The Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority is celebrating the move of four start-up companies from the Bioscience Park Center “incubator” to its new wing known as the “accelerator.”

The four biotech companies — Mitomics USA, Isogenis/Greffex, Touch of Life Technologies and Light Labs — are among 39 firms that have been housed in Bioscience Park Center. They have run out of room and are graduating to the $8 million, three-story, 37,000-square-foot expansion, taking up most of that space. The new facility already is 78 percent leased.

“It’s a nice problem to have when you haven’t even opened your new building yet and you could potentially now be limited in space again,” said the authority’s new president and CEO, Steve VanNurden.

Wendy Mitchell, president and CEO of the Aurora Economic Development Council, called the new building “a huge deal. It’s another opportunity to expand bioscience in Aurora and the Fitzsimons campus. Without this expansion, we might have lost those firms. The fact that it’s opening and is almost full means what we’re doing there is working.”

Mitomics is a diagnostic company for prostate cancer and other diseases. Isogenis researches ways to improve the process of organ transplants. Touch of Life has dissected and cataloged the human body, and creates software for classrooms and labs. Light Labs sells laboratory supplies.

The Fitzsimons Life Science District is the center of Colorado’s bioscience practice and research community and is one of the largest biotech real estate developments in the country. VanNurden believes the expansion will make it even better.

“We can put Colorado on the map by giving companies room to grow and incubate them here, and then accelerate them there,” he said.

VanNurden recently was chairman of Mayo Clinic Ventures, the invention arm of the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, where he helped create 45 to 50 start-up companies.

“We started companies all over the country and sometimes over the world, including Brussels, Belgium,” he said. “In coming here, my thought was: Wouldn’t it be great to start these companies and they would be right in my backyard? And we can do that right on this campus.”

Companies have access to the facilities and research at the adjacent Anschutz Medical Campus, which includes the University of Colorado Hospital, Children’s Hospital and the CU schools of medicine.

It all came about when the Army vacated Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in 1999. Land south of Montview was donated to CU. The Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority purchased the property north of Montview, including Fitzsimons Golf Course.

“There are now close to 20,000 people who work here,” VanNurden said. “In another 15 years, it has the potential to grow to 40,000. The possibilities are just amazing.”

As the Life Science District expands and light rail is built through the property, at least four holes of the golf course will be affected.

“So this could be the beginning of the end for the golf course,” VanNurden said.

John Mossman: 303-954-1479, jmossman@denverpost.com