Massachusetts is medtech-rich, and Gov. Deval Patrick has long been a strong supporter of the industry in the commonwealth. Present at the site on April 4 to celebrate the beginning of construction, he said, “I welcome LabCentral to Kendall Square and look forward to them growing jobs in the commonwealth. By investing in the life sciences sector, we are choosing to shape our future rather than leave it to chance. We will continue that strategy to create a stronger commonwealth for the next generation.”
Also present was U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “Small businesses are the economic heartbeat of local communities, and they are also some of the best and brightest innovators in the world,” she said. “Often times, these small companies struggle to get off the ground, because of the cost of getting a business started. By providing fully functional lab space and reducing burdensome red tape, LabCentral drastically lowers startup costs for entrepreneurs. This kind of public/private partnership creates a robust ecosystem for entrepreneurship and should become a model for the nation.”
“We founded LabCentral because we saw a critical need in the startup community,” said founder and executive director of LabCentral, Johannes Fruehauf, M.D., Ph.D. “With no shared laboratory space available, entrepreneurs with potentially game-changing technology spend precious resources and time on leasing, fit-out, and permitting lab space that could be better spent on actual research—on fine-tuning the technology to prepare for clinical trials and commercialization.”
The MLSC board of directors awarded LabCentral a $5 million capital grant to establish the facility. Funding for the grant comes from the Bay State’s 10-year, $1 billion life-sciences Initiative, proposed by Patrick in 2007 and approved by the state legislature in 2008. The MLSC’s mission is to create jobs in the life sciences and support vital scientific research that will improve the human condition. This work includes making financial investments in public and private institutions that are advancing life-sciences research, development and commercialization as well as building strong ties among the various sectors of the Massachusetts life-sciences community.
“A key strategy of the Life Sciences Center is to use our capital dollars to enable the creation of unique resources that will be available to the Massachusetts life-sciences community,” said Susan Windham-Bannister, Ph.D., president and CEO of the MLSC. “LabCentral is a novel model that will provide startup companies with access to wet lab space in a collaborative environment using shared resources. This type of unique work space will help accelerate the pace of new company formation and the innovation pipeline that has been so important in attracting larger companies to Massachusetts.”