|
|||||
 |
|||||
|
|||||
|
Cow town legacy includes base for future growth Kansas City Business Journal Ironically, Kansas City's new animal health initiative was born of an effort to tap into the "New Economy." The initiative, which has the region celebrating its cow town past once again, began with an attempt to differentiate the region's budding biotechnology economy, said Bill Duncan, president of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute Inc. In 2004, the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute hired New Economy Strategies, a Washington consulting firm, to develop a strategic plan for the new biotech effort, Duncan said. The consultants pointed to animal health and nutrition as a strength that should be built upon. "You always want to play to your strengths," Duncan said. A report that Dallas-based Brakke Consulting Inc. released Aug. 17 reaffirmed the region's strength in the animal health market. In fact, the report says, the region between Columbia and Manhattan "has the largest single concentration of animal health interests in the world." Now, the three organizations advancing the new animal health initiative are promoting the corridor with the "KC Animal Health Corridor" brand developed by the Kansas City Area Development Council. According to Brakke, one thing the Kansas City region has going for it is the fact that it "is the only U.S. region investing specifically in attracting animal health companies." Bayer HealthCare LLC's Animal Health Division, which has its North American headquarters in Shawnee, seeded the animal health effort in February with a $300,000 gift. The money was split among the initiative's three organizing bodies -- the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, the KCADC and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce -- and each is investing its share according to its assigned role. Not only that, Duncan said, the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute has leveraged $75,000 of its allocation from Bayer into an additional $450,000 from the U.S. Department of Labor. The money will be used to make $25,000 grants during the next three years to area public institutions working on research that animal health companies have expressed an interest in. Requests for proposals are expected to go out this month, and Bayer Animal Health is interested in one potential grant recipient -- a University of Missouri veterinary researcher who is trying to identify genetic markers for cardiovascular disease. "We are interested in developing products for treating cardiovascular disease," said Ernst Heinen, vice president of research and development for Bayer Animal Health. "So we would be interested in commercializing the results of that research." Joerg Ohle, president of Bayer Animal Health and chairman of the animal health initiative's advisory board, said that increasing research dollars for regional institutions is one of the four primary goals of the initiative. The other three goals are to make existing animal health companies in the region more successful, to increase the percentage of worldwide animal health product sales linked to companies based in the region and to increase jobs. Leaders of the initiative were expected to announce the recruitment of a new animal health company headquarters within days of the release of the Brakke study. Bob Tully of CEVA/Biomune Vaccines in Lenexa said, "The more, the merrier." Tully, a member of the initiative's advisory board, said that clustering animal health companies in the same region can help companies like CEVA/Biomune in several ways. "One big advantage is it increases the laboratory-skilled labor pool, which helps us recruit technical people," Tully said. "Researchers want to come to an area where they can advance their name, advance their skills and publish. And those things are particularly advanced by the fact that Kansas City sits at the center of a triangle created by three of the most recognized land grant colleges in the United States -- Kansas State, Iowa State and Oklahoma State. "And, of course, there's the University of Missouri veterinary school, as well." CEVA/Biomune licenses research on potential new vaccines from several regional universities, Tully said, so the firm stands to benefit from the increased research financing the initiative plans to attract to those institutions. It also will benefit from the continuing education opportunities that soon will be available at a new K-State satellite campus planned in Olathe, partly because of the many animal health companies in the area. Tully said other benefits CEVA/Biomune already enjoys as a Kansas City-area company include the central U.S. location and the proximity of food-animal monitoring programs. "Diagnostic labs in Columbia, Manhattan, Iowa, Oklahoma are all monitoring what's going on in the field daily," Tully said. "Folks, many of them located in this area, are publishing that information, and we're monitoring it. "That's how we identify emerging diseases, and the need for new vaccines, in the animal population." Leading the flock Members of an advisory board formed recently to lead the Kansas City region's animal health and nutrition initiative are:
|
Home | Benefits of the Corridor | Outstanding Business Climate | Concentration of Companies | Ground-Breaking Research | For more information, contact: © Kansas City Area Development Council. All rights reserved. |
