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Positioned for the Future
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In This Report: Missouri
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St. Louis and Kansas City
are both moving front and center in plant and life sciences. Many of the
largest agricultural-related companies in the world have a presence in St.
Louis, including Anheuser-Busch, Monsanto, Mallinckrodt and Ralston-Purina. In
a study commissioned by the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association,
these and other factors led the Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute to
identify the region as a prime center for plant science and a major center for
life science. With that, says Richard C.D. Fleming, president and chief
executive officer of the SLRCGA, there came another conclusion: “St. Louis
is positioned to be the world leader in plant sciences.” The association
soon began branding the area’s plant- and life-sciences cluster as the “BioBelt.”
The director of the Danforth Center in Creve Couer is Roger N. Beachy, a
former instructor at Washington University who holds a Ph.D. in plant
pathology from Michigan State University. Until now, says Beachy, plant
science has been a “poor cousin” of life sciences, garnering minimal
government research awards and relatively modest corporate contracts. The
director, who is in the process of hiring 225 researchers to staff the center,
hopes to close the gap. And doing so could have vast implications for the
future.
In the last 50 years the world population has increased from 2.5 billion to 6
billion people. During that same time the earth has lost 25 percent of its
topsoil, 20 percent of its agricultural land and one-third of its forests. In
the face of these diminishing resources, plant research is the key to
unlocking the secrets of genetic resistance, chemical controls and other
mysteries that will result in higher crop yields.
At the other end of the Biotech Corridor, in the 15-county Kansas City
metropolitan area, an estimated 250,000 jobs were created in the last 10
years. Now, the region stands to benefit from the creation of a life science
economy.
A moving force in that direction is the not-for-profit Kansas City Area Life
Sciences Institute, Inc., launched in 1999 by civic, business and research
leaders. Among the life science research organizations collaborating in the
KCALSI efforts, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research is among the newest
and most notable. American Century Cos. Inc. founder James Stowers and his
wife, Virginia, announced in 1994 that they would devote their personal
fortune to medical research. The result was the opening in November 2000 of
the $200 million Stowers Institute, as well as an early gift from the
namesakes of $1.1 billion in securities. Eventually, some 600 scientists will
be doing research at the institute.
The KCALSI and other biomedical research proponents often refer to “islands
of excellence” within their midst. While the Stowers Institute is the
biggest research island in the chain, there are others. These include the
University of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute; the University of
Missouri at Kansas; and the Midwest Research Institute, a provider of contract
research and development services in biomedicine and pharmaceuticals.
An equidistant 125 miles from Kansas City and St. Louis is the city of
Columbia, a kind of linchpin for the I-70 Biotech Corridor. Here the
University of Missouri recently broke ground for its $60 million Life Sciences
Center, scheduled for completion in 2004. With this facility, says Dr. Michael
Chippendale, interim director of the center, a range of life sciences programs
will be integrated. “It’s a facility,” he says, “designed to promote
scientific interactions.”
Yet another connection in the Biotech Corridor is being fused by the
University of Missouri-Rolla and Fort Leonard Wood, which are within 30 miles
of each other. The Rolla campus is one of four maintained by the University of
Missouri, and is its primary technological facility. Fort Leonard Wood is a
center for the U.S. Army’s environmental technologies, including its
biological, chemical and nuclear schools.
Still other developments promise to enhance the research capabilities along
the length of the Biotech Corridor. In St. Louis, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation
hurried in recent weeks to complete its $55 million Life Science Technology
Center. In spring of 2001, Washington University began construction of a $33
million medical engineering building. The Missouri Botanical Garden is home to
the world’s most active research program in tropical botany, and the site of
a $20 million Monsanto Center that holds millions of plant species. And
Monsanto Company operates the Chesterfield Village Research Center, home to
more than 900 scientists dedicated to biotechnology. Still another St. Louis
asset is the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise, a business incubator,
focused on life sciences.
On the Kansas City side of the research ledger, Quintiles Transnational Corp.,
which purchased Hoechst Marion Roussel’s drug development labs in Kansas
City, helped set up the Missouri Biotechnology Association. The organization
grew from 20 to 120 members within a year. Its formation is just one more
example of how I-70, Missouri’s Biotech Corridor, has put this state on the
fast track to the future.
This special section was written by Edward J. Walsh and designed by John Browning for ROP, Ltd. Produced by James O. Armstrong, president of James Armstrong & Associates, Inc., jim@jamesarmstrongassoc.com.