Your next discovery should be Metro Denver's emerging bio industry.
With over 15,090 bioscience workers in approximately 520 companies, the nine-county region has a significant foundation on which to build and expand the bioscience cluster.
The region ranks sixth among the top 50 metro areas for 2009 employment concentration in medical devices and 18th for pharmaceuticals and biotechnology employment.
The Fitzsimons Life Science District and the adjacent Anschutz Medical Campus are among the most ambitious medical developments in the country, and are the focal points of opportunity in the bioscience industry. When complete, the $4.3 billion project encompassing 578 total acres and more than six million square feet of new real estate will be a world-class scientific community offering cutting-edge space, services, and support to more than 30,000 bioscience professionals.
Numerous university and bioscience research facilities dot the region and scientific talent is abundant with Metro Denver ranking Colorado the fourth-best state for business by Forbes magazine in 2009. Industry support and advocacy is available through the Colorado BioScience Association, which is working to create a premier bioscience cluster within the state.
Colorado's bioscience industry received yet another boost when Nobel Laureate Tom Cech returned to the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) in April 2009 after 10 years as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Cech, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the discovery that RNA in living cells can function as a catalyst, spends his time teaching, doing lab work, and directing the university's Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology (CIMB).
As further incentive to move your company's bottom line, the state of Colorado has amassed several programs to help bioscience companies succeed. Recent legislation provides SBIR matching grants, sales tax exemptions for manufacturing equipment in clean room operations, and a five-year, $31.5 million Bioscience and Life Science Fund providing grants to startup companies and research institutions.
With all of this momentum, it's no wonder the region was ranked a top-five life science and development location in a Site Selection magazine survey. So take a closer look at Metro Denver – nowhere in the country will you discover better access to knowledge workers, venture capital, and innovation.
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