By Shera Dalin
In the last few years, Missouri moved assertively to support job creation in the life sciences, bioenergy, and other technology areas by assisting the researchers and entrepreneurs who make the discoveries that feed the growth of new companies.
The incentives are a varied assortment of grants, loans, gap financing and tax credits that offer a wide range of options for start-up and expanding firms, explains Ben Johnson, project specialist for the Coalition of Plant and Life Sciences, which is housed at the Regional Chamber and Growth Association.
“Missouri now has a continuum, or a menu, of options to support companies,” he says. “The state has a number of programs and a coordinated effort to help our local companies grow and to take research ideas from our universities and commercialize them. The incentives will also help attract other companies to Missouri.”
Much of the funding for the newest commercialization programs came as a one-time infusion from the state’s Lewis & Clark Discovery Initiative legislation. To build research capacity that feeds the creation of companies, there are also funds from the Life Sciences Research Trust Fund, which was created in 2003 using tobacco lawsuit settlement funds.
“All of these programs are designed to help commercialize research and move it forward into companies that create
quality jobs,” Johnson says.
Part of the reason Missouri created the slate of programs was to encourage the osmosis of research from the lab into the marketplace. It also was aimed at attracting or relocating firms that could have natural ties to the science and innovation strengths of Missouri.
“We have this incredible research engine,” Johnson notes. “It presents an opportunity to translate our research base into technology companies and to build a thriving 21st century economy.”
The collection of incentives are:
•The Missouri Technology Incentive Program (MOTIP) provides funding to
support entrepreneurs who are pursuing federal Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer grant funding. MOTIP offers $5,000 Phase 0 grants to assist with the costs of preparing and submitting Phase I grant applications and bridge loans of up to $50,000 for Phase I grantees pursuing a Phase II grant.
•The Intellectual Property Management Fund provides low interest loans of up to $15,000 for companies to assist with the costs of securing patent protection for their intellectual property.
•The Ag Biotech Recruitment Fund is a vehicle to recruit and retain agriculture biotechnology companies through grants, low-interest loans, convertible debt and direct equity investments in companies moving to Missouri.
•The Missouri Technology Corporation has set aside funds to help Missouri fill a void of seed capital to invest in high growth technology companies through the creation of a $15 million (minimum) seed capital investment fund. The program is designed to encourage the mining of discoveries and innovations at Missouri institutions with the assistance of hands-on development by a contracted fund manager and team—targeting food, fuel, and health opportunities in early stage agbio, agritech, and medical devices/diagnostics areas. Other goals for the fund manager are investing in technology companies that will relocate all or part of their operations to Missouri and accessing complementary technologies across the globe that could be combined with Missouri discoveries that drive new company formation and collaboration.
•The Missouri General Assembly allocated $13.4 million to the Life Sciences Research Trust Fund in 2007 and 2008. The Life Sciences Trust Fund was established in 2003 to increase the state’s ability to attract the outside research support that fuels our research base.
The incentives are starting to pay off. The Danforth Plant Science Center received a grant to research how oilseed crops can be used to form plastics. The research is being done in collaboration with the Boston company, Metabolix, which has since decided to establish a research and development presence in St. Louis as a result.
The Ag Biotech Recruitment Fund was tapped to recruit the establishment of a U.S. headquarters of a United Kingdom animal health company, which moved to an incubator in Columbia and got funds to build out its lab space from the Lewis & Clark initiative.
The Missouri Technology Corporation, which manages the Lewis & Clark funds, awarded three small high-tech companies Phase II Bridge Loans through MoTIP. Cervimark and VirRx, both of St. Louis, and Iconic Health of Columbia received the funding.
In St. Louis, the Life Sciences Research Trust Fund was tapped to help form a regional center of excellence to study nanomedicine. St. Louis Institute of Nanomedicine Working Group is a consortium of Washington University, Saint Louis University, University of Missouri-St. Louis and St. Louis Community College. The Working Group received $1.5 million for three years from the trust fund to pay for four pilot projects a year for research and student training.
“A small investment from the state to help organize the nanomedicne group places our region and our state in a better position to apply for National Institutes of Health funds and to attract other outside money that helps expand our research strengths and grow our economy,” Johnson explains.
