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UNIVERSITIES INVEST IN FUTURE OF ST. LOUIS
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By Brian R. Hook
Universities across St. Louis are investing in the region—from partnering on big economic-development projects to collaborating one-on-one with startup firms.
One of the biggest and most recent developments is the plan for St. Louis-based Express Scripts Inc. to build its new headquarters on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The company announced in September that it would break ground on the new headquarters later this year, with occupancy expected in March 2007.
“Our expansion to UMSL aligns Express Scripts and our employees with the business, research and civic resources that will help strengthen and grow our company,” says George Paz, president and CEO at Express Scripts. “We envision a flourishing collaboration that will serve as a model for public/private initiatives.”
 CORTEX is a consortium that includes the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Washington University and Saint Louis University, among other non-profit and civic groups across the region. |
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Another big development is the Center for Research Technology and Entrepreneurial eXhange. CORTEX is a consortium that includes UMSL, Washington University, Saint Louis University, Missouri Botanical Garden, and Barnes Jewish Hospital Foundation. The
CORTEX initiative is designed to promote the development of a nationally recognized life-sciences industry in Midtown St. Louis.
St. Louis-based Clayco is the construction manager for the first CORTEX building. The three-story, 170,000-square-foot facility will include office and laboratory space. Lewis A. Levey, President of Development for CORTEX, indicated that Stereotaxis will move into the first building at Forest Park and Boyle in December 2005, with Washington University Center for Applied Nanomedicine occupying their facility during the first quarter of 2006. These two users account for about one half of the building being leased, with another 80,000 square feet currently being marketed for lease. Levey says, “We are in active discussions with several prospects and are very encouraged by the early interest.”
Nasser Arshadi, VP for research at UMSL, says that collaborations between UMSL and Express Scripts and consortiums like the CORTEX initiative are essential. “St. Louis has tremendous resources in terms of universities,” he says. “It is important to come together in a collaborative fashion to push forward the expansion of research and enterprise.”
UMSL also plans to launch a new information-technology incubator in 2006. “The idea is to leverage our strengths in IT to establish a facility where inventions from our university and other universities can be utilized to set up startup companies,” Arshadi says. “We nurture these companies to grow and some of them become successful.”
Arshadi says a good example is St. Louis-based Stereotaxis Inc., which went public last year. Stereotaxis designs, manufacturers, and markets an advanced interventional cardiology remote control system. It is currently based at the Center for Emerging Technologies in Midtown St. Louis—another public-private partnership that is working to create an environment that fosters technology-driven enterprises.
“We have been able to support a company from its beginning. Then we can facilitate the company moving to a bigger facility. Alternatively, if we don’t have enough accommodations, they move somewhere else and they will take jobs with them,” he says.
| Marcia Mellitz, president & CEO, Center for Emerging Technology |
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Marcia Mellitz, president and CEO at the Center for Emerging Technologies says the center is planning more events to foster collaboration between startups at the center and faculty at universities from across the St. Louis region. Over the summer the center hosted a group from UMSL. She says similar type meetings are planned for this fall with faculty at Washington University.
Mellitz says the collaborations help bring more money into St. Louis. “They will often apply for federal grants as part of a team,” she says. In other cases, she says. Universities are helping in the development of the new technologies. “When these companies start they don’t have a commercial product and the technology needs a lot more development,” Mellitz says.
One such collaboration at the center is between Washington University and Orion Genomics LLC. The biotechnology-company, which is developing oncology diagnostic products, recently announced a partnership with the university. Researchers are working together to discover novel biomarkers for the development of tests that screen for cancer at an early stage and provide information about how tumors should be treated.
“Washington University has a very broad range of partnerships—from sponsorships of programs to research partnerships to consulting and experience based learning for students to mentoring new companies. The collaboration is diverse and almost impossible to measure,” says Chris Dornfeld, entrepreneurship collaboration director at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University.
Dornfeld says the St. Louis region posses all of the raw material needed to become “one of the most vibrant regional economies in the world”—including significant innovation and research, plus a deep pool of business and financial resources. “As we continue to develop new social networks that allow new collaboration to take place—we will also witness new opportunities to grow our economy,” Dornfeld says.
To boost development, Saint Louis University has set up the $10 million Community Improvement Fund. It has already pledged $5 million over five years to CORTEX, according to Kathleen Brady, vice president for facilities management and civic affairs at the university. Plus, the university has set up the $5 million Technology Transfer Fund.
“These activities are important to the
St. Louis region because it sends a message that this community can provide deal flow to private equity firms in the high tech space,” says Joseph Zahner, director of the Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property at
Saint Louis University. “If we are successful, good jobs may not be far behind.”
Zahner says the office at the university has been instrumental in the creation of seven high-tech companies since 2000. “More can be done by universities, but we must realize that licensing technology to a home-grown-startup company is a very risky business and the direct benefits to the university are not very clear,” Zahner says.
| Rick Pershall, vice president, Geotechnology |
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Rick Pershall, vice president of St. Louis-based Geotechnology Inc., also says more collaborating between businesses in the
St. Louis region and universities are needed. He says his engineering firm, which specializes in geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering and materials testing, often partners with professors.
Pershall says Geotechnology has associations with universities that offer engineering and other technical programs, such as the University of Missouri–Rolla, University of Missouri–Columbia and Southern Illinois University–Carbondale. “We like to develop relationships with these universities, since many of our employees will originate from their engineering and other technical programs,” Pershall says.
| John McAlister, president & CEO, Tripos |
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St. Louis-based Tripos Inc., which aids drug discovery through its proprietary informatics and research technologies, also frequently works with universities. “Tripos funds research work in a number of universities around the world that ultimately is incorporated into products or forms independent products,” says John McAlister, president and CEO of the publicly-traded company.
“University activities frequently spawn the ideas that lead to formation of companies,” McAlister says. He says Tripos budgets between $600,000 and $700,000 a year for collaboration. But he says that it does not currently have any underway in St. Louis. “We are open to them if there is opportunity and interest,” McAlister says.
“Tripos had its genesis in the Washington University School of Medicine. We respect those roots and believe that universities are unique and uniquely valuable crucibles from which spring new and interesting businesses,” he says. “This is an asset the community and the sources of funding in the community should take very seriously.” |
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