2024 PBN Innovative Companies Awards
GOVERNMENT: R.I. Life Science Hub
PATRICE M. MILOS DESCRIBES the creation of the quasi-public entity R.I. Life Science Hub last year in one word: “exciting.”
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Equipped with a $45 million budget, the hub will fund and support local life science companies through grants and tax incentives while promoting workforce and economic development. The hub’s goal is to strengthen the life science sector in Rhode Island, and encourage collaboration and innovation among public, private and academic institutions.
“Rhode Island needs industries beyond tourism to put a stake in the ground for the future,” Hub board Chairman Neil D. Steinberg said.
Officials say the hub will be a game-changer. Opening an incubator lab space next year with meeting and office space for companies tops the to-do list.
“We need incubator lab space. There is no commercial lab space in Rhode Island,” Steinberg said.
Ideally, the hub will help give birth to and grow life sciences companies, as well as attract similar companies that relocate to Rhode Island.
Milos, the hub’s interim president, says the inaugural summit this spring attended by more than 500 people was a “great kickoff” that brought together government, industry, innovators and academia for one cause.
“We want life sciences to be an economic engine for the state,” Milos said.
Workforce development is key, Milos says, and skilled workers will be needed. Steinberg says the state wants a range of jobs from lab techs to individuals with doctorates. Already there was a boot camp to train people in the biomanufacturing field and there is a neuroscience symposium planned for early next year.
“The real strength for us will be to translate the academic to commercial,” Milos said.
Education has been the hub’s focus this past first year, with personnel learning how to be a quasi-public organization, Milos says.
Steinberg and Milos are inspired by how government, academia and industry are coming together. Milos says the hub had life sciences executives outside of Rhode Island ask officials how they can help build the sector in the Ocean State.
“What we want to do will take time, but we have great support,” Steinberg said.
