NEWSCLIPS & PRESS RELEASES
Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Announces 2010 Internship Challenge Program
January 12, 2010--The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center today announced the launch of the Center’s Internship Challenge Program for the summer of 2010, the second year of a workforce development program focused on enhancing the talent pipeline for Massachusetts life sciences
companies. Read the press release >>
Life Sciences Center Awards $25 million in tax incentives
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board of Directors has awarded $25 million in Tax Incentives to twenty-eight life sciences companies. The companies receiving tax incentive awards have committed to creating a combined 918 new jobs in the Commonwealth over the coming year. Read the press release >>
Life Sciences Center Welcomes Two International Companies to Massachusetts
CYTOO Cell Architects, a French biotechnology company focused on applications in cell based assays, recently opened their U.S. subsidiary, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. Read the
press release here >>
Center welcomes Systagenix to Quincy
Systagenix Wound Management, a leading medical device company that specializes in cutting-edge chronic wound care solutions, is expanding its operations by opening a North, Central, and South American Headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts. Read the press release here>>
Center's Investment Leverages
Federal Grant Funding for MBL
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) $802,500 in federal stimulus funds to support the recruitment of scientists specializing in regenerative biology, along with a second grant providing $557,000 for the Laboratory’s intensive Frontiers in Stem Cells and Regeneration training course. Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray visited MBL to participate in the grant announcements. Read the press release >>
Center Approves $7.7 Million Grant for Phase II of Framingham Economic Development Project
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board of Directors has approved a $7.7 million grant to the Town of Framingham for Phase II of a wastewater management project. The project will facilitate the contruction of a Genzyme biomanufacturing facility in the Framingham technology park. The Genzyme facility will create more than 300 new jobs, and the Genzyme and wastewater projects combined will create 165 jobs in construction.
Read the press release here>>
Biocell Center Opens North American
Headquarters in Medford
Biocell Center, a European biotechnology company that is the only firm in the world to harvest and preserve amniotic stem cells, opened its North American headquarters and laboratory in Medford, Massachusetts on October 22, 2009. The company has other facilities in Italy and Switzerland. Read the press release >>
Mass General Hospital scientist receives Nobel Prize
Jack W. Szostak, PhD, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Molecular Biology and Harvard Medical School has been named a recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Szostak is being recognized for work predicting and then discovering telomerase, an enzyme that builds and maintains the protective caps at the tips of chromosomes. Read press release >>
Bio Convention to return to Boston in 2012
Governor Deval Patrick, Boston Mayor Tom Menino, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Executive Director Jim Rooney, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center President & CEO Susan Windham-Bannister, and Massachusetts Biotechnology Council President Robert Coughlin joined together on September 28, 2009 to announce that Bio International, the world's largest life sciences trade show, will return to Boston in 2012.
Read the press release here >>
Center to provide $90 million in capital funding for Sherman Center Project at UMass Medical
Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center have announced the approval of $90 million in capital funding toward the construction of the $405 million Albert Sherman Center Project at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). A key targeted investment in the Life Science Act, the facility will further bolster the pioneering life sciences research and medical education taking place at UMass Medical School in Worcester. Read the press release here >>
MBL breaks ground on Loeb Laboratory renovations
Senate President Therese Murray, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and key state officials gathered recently at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) to break ground on a $25 million renovation of the MBL's central research training facility, the Loeb Laboratory. This renovation will create 250 regional construction jobs over the next 15 months and will greatly enhance the MBL's and the state's ability to attract and retain top scientists. The Center is providing a $10 million grant toward the costs of the renovation project. Read the press release here >>
Two Accelerator companies receive FDA approval on medical devices
Two of the Center's seven Accelerator portfolio companies recently received FDA approval for innovative medical technologies. Wadsworth Technologies announced in September, 2009 that their DermaLOC wound closure system had been approved by the FDA. Pluromed announced shortly thereafter that they had received FDA approval for BackStop, a device used in ureteroscopic kidney stone management procedures.
Read the Wadsworth press release here >>
Read the Pluromed press release here >>
Life Sciences Internship Challenge Receives Extraordinary Response
The Center's Life Sciences Internship Challenge has received an overwhelming response since its February launch, with more than 500 applicants looking for internships this summer. Through the Challenge, 104 interns have been matched with 59 life sciences companies and research institutions. Read the press release >>
Second Round of New Investigator Grants Completed
The Center has completed its second round of New Investigator Matching Grants by awarding $600,000 to three Harvard-affiliated researchers. Read the press release >>
UMass receives grant to establish Professional Science Masters Degree programs
Congratulations to the University of Massachusetts on being awarded a $124,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to create 10 life sciences Professional Science Masters Degree programs. The initiative will span all five campuses and multiple academic concentrations. The need for such programs was a key finding of the Life Sciences Talent Initiative (LSTI) study that the Center co-sponsored last year. Read the press release >>
View the LSTI report >>
Center awards $1.4 million in New Investigator Grants
On June 24, 2009, The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board of Directors awarded $1,380,256 in New Investigator Grants. The Center’s grants will support seven young scientists working at research institutions in Massachusetts.
Center to continue funding
International Stem Cell Registry
On June 24, 2009, The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board of Directors approved $695,000 in continued funding for the International Stem Cell Registry. The Registry is a comprehensive database of current information on stem cells managed by the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
Read the Press Release >>
Learn more about the ISCR here >>
MLSC Accelerator Program Receives Strong Response
The MLSC has received eighty-eight applications for the Center's Accelerator loan program for early-stage companies. The first round of applications began on January 1, 2009 and closed on March 6, 2009. Click here to read the press release. Read the press release >>
Life Sciences Head Looking For Answers
Worcester Business Journal | September 10, 2008
Susan Windham-Bannister, president and CEO of the new Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, says the center is still working out the principles it will use to distribute the $500 million it is responsible for.
During the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Venture Forum Tuesday, Windham-Bannister told entrepreneurs and funders that the center is still in its formative stages and is wrestling with questions about how to use the $250 million in investment funds and $250 million in tax incentives it controls under the state's new $1 billion life sciences initiative. Read more >>
Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Announces Newly Appointed Board Of Directors
New board votes to approve first-of-its-kind state investment of nearly $7M in
Massachusetts-based Research Matching Grants
BOSTON -July 23, 2008 – The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) announced its newly formed Board of Directors at the board’s July meeting today, the first meeting since Governor Deval Patrick signed landmark Life Sciences legislation on June 16th. The $1 billion investment package positions Massachusetts as a global leader in the industry and tasks the Center with realizing the vision of the initiative. As one of its first acts, the board voted to approve the recipients of two 2008 Research Matching Grants, totaling nearly $7 million, that will go to foster and grow the scientific research enterprise of the Commonwealth. Read more >>
The $1 billion question
Life Sciences Center chief sees herself as state standard-bearer
Boston Globe | July 20, 2008
Susan Windham-Bannister, 57, has a big job before her: spending $1 billion. The longtime healthcare industry consultant was just tapped to run the new Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the agency charged with overseeing the state's new $1 billion life sciences initiative. The agency is so new that the Carlisle resident is just the second employee. (Melissa Walsh, the center's chief of staff, is the other.) Globe reporter Todd Wallack sat down with Windham-Bannister recently to find out her vision for the job. Read more >>
WELL APPOINTED
Life Sciences Head To Market Commonwealth
Windham-Bannister brings little lab time, but a wealth of public policy experience, to new post
By Eileen Kennedy
Worcester Business Journal Staff
06/22/08
At first blush, Gov. Deval Patrick’s appointment of Susan Windham-Bannister to head the state’s Life Sciences Center might seem a little unusual.
After all, as head of the center she will be put in charge of the state’s recently passed $1 billion life sciences initiative. And although she’s worked within the biotechnology industry for years, she’s never been the one handling the test tubes and pipettes. Read more >>
Patrick keeps a promise to the biotech industry
Governor set to sign $1b benefit plan
By Todd Wallack
Boston Globe
June 16, 2008
When the world's biggest biotechnology trade show opened in Boston last year, Governor Deval L. Patrick unveiled a bold proposal to pump $1 billion into the state's growing life sciences industry over the next decade.
Today, Patrick is headed to this year's convention in San Diego to tell biotech executives he is finally delivering on that promise. Read more >>
Mass. governor signs life
sciences law before conference
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Associated Press
House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, Nobel Prize winner Craig Mello and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft joined the governor as he signed the landmark legislation at the Joslin Diabetes Center. Kraft has funded medical research, and Mello is a University of Massachusetts researcher who won the 2005 Nobel Prize for medicine. Read more >>
Life sciences industry lauds Deval Patrick
$1 billion biotech measure sets Massachusetts apart
Boston Herald
By Christine McConville | Monday, June 16, 2008
What a difference a year makes.
Last May, Gov. Deval Patrick announced ambitious plans for an economic stimulus package to position Massachusetts as a leader in the life sciences industry.
Today, he is expected to make good on that promise, by making that stimulus package a law. Read more >>
$1B Life Sciences Plan Now Law
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON, JUNE 16, 2008…. Massachusetts has offered the life sciences industry $1 billion worth of incentives over the next decade, hoping that cutting-edge companies can offset losses in more traditional industries and develop innovative medical technology, as Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday signed into law his signature economic development priority. Read more >>
Life sciences bill could boost region's economy
Eagle Tribune
June 15, 2008
By Edward Mason
BOSTON — A $1 billion bill, aimed at making Massachusetts a leader in the cutting-edge life sciences industry, could create thousands of jobs locally and fund a long-envisioned Interstate 93 interchange project.
The life sciences bill, a key part of Gov. Deval Patrick's economic strategy, will be signed into law tomorrow, just before the governor and top state lawmakers jet off to the Bio2008 conference in San Diego to pitch Massachusetts as a place for life science companies to prosper.
Read more >>
Mass. Life Sciences Center Creates
Scientific Advisory Board
Peer review board to be chaired by
renowned researcher Dr. Harvey F. Lodish
BOSTON (March 26, 2008) – The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) today announced the creation of a Scientific Advisory Board to provide scientific and technical advice and oversight, and to ensure scientific credibility and transparency for the Center’s activities and grant-making decisions. The Center has appointed Dr. Harvey F. Lodish, Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology and of Bioengineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to chair the new board. Read more >>
State House News Service
March 26, 2008
Personnel File [Excerpted]
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board has appointed MIT scientist HARVEY LODISH as chair of its Scientific Advisory Board. Lodish is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a professor of biotechnology and bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The advisory board is charged with making investment recommendations to the center board, the governor and the Legislature. Lodish plans to recommend a list of 12 advisory board members from academia and the venture capital and pharmaceutical industries over the next several weeks. "Our C-list would be the envy of most states," said Lodish.
Life sciences grant program launched in Mass.
NECN
February 13, 2008
(NECN) - Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and other state officials announced Thursday the launch of $12 million grant program to help spark life sciences research in the state. Read more and watch video >>
State Leaders: Billion-Dollar Life Sciences Bill Remains A Work In Progress
By Catherine Williams
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON, FEB. 11, 2008....As his $1 billion life sciences proposal continues to undergo committee review, Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday he has been "continually assured that the bill is on track for passage soon." The bill was outlined last May and filed last September. Read more>>
Stalled Life Sciences Bill Affecting Search for Life Science Center Director
By Catherine Williams
State House News Service
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, DEC. 18, 2007...A languishing life sciences bill is hobbling an administration-led recruiting effort to hire a life sciences guru to head up a new center dedicated at making state-funded life sciences research and industry investments, state officials say. Read more >>
Lawmakers Say Patrick's Life Sciences Bill May Be Unbalanced
By Michael P. Norton
and Jim O'Sullivan
State House News Service
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, DEC. 17, 2007.....Top Patrick administration officials on Monday defended Gov. Deval Patrick's $1 billion life sciences industry bill against claims that it was unconstitutional, favored out-of-state companies, and offered preferential tax treatment to one industry but not others. Read more >>
Better deal elsewhere would lure Mass. life-science firms
The Boston Globe
BUSINESS IN BRIEF
December 12, 2007
More than three in four life-sciences companies would consider leaving Massachusetts, according to preliminary results of a Massachusetts Life Sciences Collaborative survey. The survey found 78 percent of respondents would consider leaving, and 63 percent have already been contacted by other states about moving. The majority of respondents said the state could help them stay put by offering increased tax credits and other financial incentives, better transportation, low-cost space, and improvements in infrastructure. Companies said Massachusetts is attractive because it has a strong workforce and resources for research, but is also expensive. The survey comes at a time when lawmakers are considering Governor Deval L. Patrick's $1 billion proposal to boost the life sciences sector. (Todd Wallack)
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center in the News
Genzyme expansion in jeopardy
$260m Framingham plant faces hurdles on water, sewage capacity
By Todd Wallack, Boston Globe | November 21, 2007
Genzyme Corp., one of the state's largest biotech companies, has quietly drafted plans to build a $260 million biotech drug manufacturing plant in Framingham, similar in size to the one it built in Allston 11 years ago. Read more >>
Life sciences memorandum could sub for bill
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON, NOV. 19, 2007….If the Legislature does not approve timely pieces of Gov. Deval Patrick’s $1 billion life sciences plan before breaking this week until January, Beacon Hill leaders could enter into a unusual memorandum of understanding promising legislative benefits to a small number of companies. Read more >>
Together again, leaders optimistic on life sciences bill
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, NOV. 7, 2007….Reprising the scene of togetherness when they joined six months ago to announce the plan, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi stood Wednesday with Gov. Deval Patrick to play down differences over his $1 billion life sciences bill, but reserved their rights to make changes. Read more >>
Guv Asks for Help on Life Sciences Bill, Senate Prez Sees ‘Legislative Input’
State House News Service
October 3, 2007
Gov. Deval Patrick asked biotechnology industry leaders to help him push lawmakers to pass his $1 billion life sciences plan, which faces review from lawmakers who are talking more openly about expanding its scope to other industries, with House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi saying Wednesday he wants a version of the bill finalized within two months. Read more >>
State taps NY firm to hire life sciences director
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology
September 13, 2007
Massachusetts state officials plan to spend $75,000 to hire an executive director of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which is expected to manage a $1 billion fund dedicated to growing the life sciences industry in the Bay State. Read more >>
Life Sciences Board Pushes Ahead on Stem Cell Registry
By Gintautas Dumcius
The State House News Service
September 13, 2007
“As Gov. Deval Patrick's request for funding to fuel a first-in-the-nation stem cell bank awaits legislative action, the administration is fast-tracking a proposal for an international stem cell registry and setting the stage to move quickly on the proposed bank at UMass Worcester.” Read more >>
Broad Massachusetts Life Sciences Workforce Study To Begin
June 8, 2007
To ensure that Massachusetts has the skilled workforce it needs to sustain its life sciences supercluster, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council boards voted yesterday to fund the Life Sciences Talent Initiative, a broad life science workforce study conducted by the UMass Donahue Institute that will guide the state for the next decade. Read more >>