Economic Impact Study

The State of Minnesota will reap the research results, technologies and innovations are already starting to flow from the Partnership’s initial research programs and the Partnership is receiving widespread recognition in the bioscience press for its multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary collaborative model and outputs. While always a leading player in biomedical devices, Minnesota is now emerging as a notable participant at the forefront of basic and applied R&D in the frontier areas of biomedical biology, biotechnology, genomics and post-genomic sciences. This bodes well for helping build a more diversified bioscience industry base within Minnesota together with providing outstanding traction for the attraction of leading biomedical scientists and boosting the biosciences skilled human capital in the state. Furthermore, the majority of the Partnership projects are heavily focused on rapid advancement of innovations and technologies into clinical practice, and show considerable promise for improving the health of Minnesotans, enhancing their quality of life, and attracting increased patient volumes into the state to access advanced clinical care. While still early in the Partnership’s institutional life, it appears that the State’s support for the organization is being rewarded by distinctive progress towards planned goals and objectives. Momentum is being rapidly built and must now be sustained over the long-term to realize the economic development and healthcare gains visualized at the Partnership’s inception.

Facilities and R&D Infrastructure Development

Minnesota Partnership funding is being used to place the state at the forefront of advanced R&D capability in several advanced bioscience technology fields. Current projects have helped to build leadership in genetics and genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, X-ray crystallography and therapeutic protein production. In addition, $21.7 million in state bonding financed the construction and build-out of three major Partnership research floors within the Stabile research building at the Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus and $8 million in state funding was allocated to develop the BioBusiness Development Center in Rochester adjacent to the Partnership and Mayo Clinic facilities.

Partnership Employment

The Partnership has developed a core staff supported by multiple faculty, research scientists, research professionals and support personnel from across the two partner research institutions. In total 112 persons within the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic are now engaged in Partnership projects.

Partnership Revenue

The Partnership has already managed to achieve significant success in leveraging its in-state funds with further federal and other external funding and has generated the following additional funding:

• Federal Support = Two NIH grants including $8 million for imaging infrastructure
• Philanthropic Support = $12 million in charitable donations to support genomics of addiction research
• Corporate Support = $5 million in corporate research support.

The partnership is requesting a further $18 million appropriation from the Minnesota Legislature in 2007 to fund further research projects. Given the large number of research proposals being submitted in each round, it is likely that the Partnership would once again be able to select from many high-quality, independently evaluated proposals with high economic and healthcare impact potentials.

Scientific Output

• 44 papers have been published that have been supported through partnership funding. This is a very strong level of research productivity for an organization that had less than 20 FTE personnel at the close of 2006.
• 34 public research abstracts have been published, providing other research and development teams with access to a topline description of research and research findings (and raising interest in further collaborations and research leverage).
• The Partnership teams have made 42 formal presentations.

Intellectual Property Generation and Business Start-ups

Partnership research programs have generated three patent filings already and there has been one formal request for commercial licensing rights to one of the Partnership-developed technologies. So far, the Minnesota Partnership has much higher levels of patent generation efficiency (greater than 10x the national average) with one patent being generated for every $1.07 million in Partnership research expenditures.

The work plans for the nine newly funded teams are each directed at highly pragmatic projects with strong potential for producing innovations with commercial potential in diagnostic, therapeutic and other biomedical applications.

The Partnership, in collaboration with the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, is actively working to raise awareness of bioscience commercial opportunities and the technologies and innovations of the Partnership research teams through regional presentations throughout Minnesota. Events have been held, for example, in St. Cloud, Worthington and Bemidji. The St. Cloud event having an attendance in excess of 200 people, and the Worthington event more than 100 attendees. Additional events will occur at other state locations.

Key Scientific Achievements – The Four Funded Teams of Phase I

Initial Partnership funding was used to finance the R&D operations of four joint U of M/Mayo teams, in the areas of Alzheimer’s Disease, Cardiovascular Disease, Prostate Cancer and Obesity. Two-years on from the start of the partnership in 2004, substantial achievements have already been realized – a rather remarkable achievement in the biomedical arena where major progress on recalcitrant medical problems often takes decades. The rapid pace of discovery within the Partnership teams is testimony to the value of combining unique resources and skills from each of the partner institutions into multidisciplinary teams able to adopt entirely novel approaches to their research.

Phase II Partnership Research Projects

The profiles below summarize key research initiatives that have currently been made possible through funding of the Minnesota Partnership. Each profile provides a description of the key scientific focus of the research, the advanced technologies associated with it, and the potential economic development and human health benefits likely to be realized through the program. Details are also provided of expenditures made associated with each group through the end of 2006. Because the programs are so new, the spending numbers are currently quite low, but the summaries show that significant progress is already being made and outcomes achieved. The upside economic and healthcare impact of these individual projects is very much evident.

It is evident that the research programs summarized above have the potential to generate substantial economic and human health impacts. Multiple opportunities exist for the development of products and technologies with considerable economic value and commercialization potential – these include:

• Diagnostic test products
• New drugs, therapeutics and vaccines
• Gene transfer and therapy technologies
• Advanced micro-biomedical devices.

In addition to producing new patentable technologies and commercializable products, the research initiatives will also likely drive increased clinical volumes to the U of M and Mayo Clinic – generating significant economic benefits for the state in that many of these treated will be patients coming from out-of-state to receive services.

It must also be noted that the advancements predicted under these research programs show great promise for improving human health and reducing the negative economic and quality-of-life impacts associated with human disease and deteriorating health conditions. Many Minnesotans will directly benefit from the tests, drugs, vaccines, therapeutic products and devices that will result from the Minnesota Partnership’s research programs.

Other research programs within and across Mayo and the University of Minnesota are also benefiting from the investments made in infrastructure and scientific talent under the Minnesota Partnership. In 2004, Dr. Hugh Smith of Mayo Clinic noted, for example, that the “early success of out partnership with the University of Minnesota through the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics helped spark interest from and ultimately the generosity of the Samuel C. Johnson family in making this gift" – he was referring to the gift by the SC Johnson Fund of $12.05 million to fund the Genetics of Addiction collaborative research program (a program with the long-term goal of predicting and preventing alcoholism and other chemical dependencies).

Currently Funded Partnership Research Infrastructure Projects

In addition to directly funding research teams, the Minnesota Partnership is also working to reinforce and build a state-of-the-art bioscience research infrastructure for the state. Through focused investments in several highly advanced technologies, the Partnership is providing research teams with powerful tools that are driving unique insights and advancement across a broad range of biomedical opportunity areas.

It is readily apparent that the focused infrastructure investments made through the Minnesota Partnership are equipping the U of M and Mayo with the specialized resources required to stay on the forefront of advanced bioscience and biomedical research and development. Having leading-edge research infrastructure, technology and associated support services provides Minnesota with the resources required to progress advanced biomedical research and is a powerful attraction mechanism for recruiting top-quality human capital for research and development projects. These Partnership’s infrastructure investments also provide Minnesota bioscience commercial enterprises with contracted access to state-of-the-art equipment and services that would not be cost effective for companies to acquire and operate on their own.

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