Arizona's Bioscience Roadmap

• Nov. 7: Voters approve Proposition 301, providing $1 billion over 20 years for scientific research at Arizona’s public universities through the Technology Research and Initiative Fund.

• UA Science and Technology Park is named #1 research park in the nation by the Association of University Research Parks (AURP).

• Flinn Foundation commits to 10 years of major funding (a minimum of $50 million) to advance Arizona’s bioscience sector.

• BIO5 Institute (known then as IBSB) debuts at UA.

• February: Governor Jane Dee Hull appoints a task force to raise funds to attract the International Genomics Consortium (IGC) and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

• May 1: BioIndustry Organization of Southern Arizona (BIO-SA), a 501(c)6 organization, is formed.

• June 26: Dr. Jeffrey Trent announces IGC’s move to Arizona and establishment of TGen, spurred by a $90 million package assembled from collaborating public and private sources.

• December: Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap, commissioned by the Flinn Foundation and drafted by Battelle, outlines recommendations for Arizona to become a national biosciences leader.

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Arizona's Bioscience Roadmap Brochure, December 2002. (Download PDF)

• Jan. 31: Governor Janet Napolitano creates the Governor’s Council on Innovation and Technology to advance technology-related growth and economic development.

• March: ASU President Michael Crow announces creation of Arizona Technology Enterprises to help ASU researchers obtain patents and launch spin-off companies.

• April: Arizona Board of Regents charters the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative, a joint effort of the three state universities, to be headquartered in downtown Phoenix.

• April 29: Biodesign Institute at ASU breaks ground on its first facility; Dr. George Poste is named Biodesign’s founding director.

• June 3: Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community donates $5 million to TGen and forges partnership to study diabetes and other diseases prevalent among American Indians.

• June 13: TGen breaks ground on its downtown-Phoenix headquarters.

• June 19: The state Legislature approves $440 million for research-facility construction.

• June 20: Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap Steering Committee, piloted by former Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza, holds its inaugural meeting.

• October: ASU Technopolis forms, providing business mentorship, education, and resources to ASU-affiliated life-science entrepreneurs.

• November: Arizona Bioindustry Cluster is reorganized as the Arizona BioIndustry Association, a 501(c)6 trade organization.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, December 2003. (Download PDF)

• Aug. 4: Gov. Janet Napolitano, UA President Peter Likins, ASU President Michael Crow, and Regent Gary Stuart sign memorandum of understanding to create the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, to include the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix in partnership with ASU.

• October: The CardioWest total artificial heart, developed at UA, is the first FDA-approved implantable artificial heart. The American Heart Association calls it the top advance of 2004.

• Oct. 19: Gov. Janet Napolitano appoints the Arizona Commission on Medical Education and Research (ACMER) to strengthen university biomedical-education and research programs.

• Nov. 2: Maricopa County voters approve a bond issue that includes $100 million to expand bioscience and healthcare training for Maricopa County Colleges.

• Dec. 14: Biodesign Institute’s first building, a $73 million, 170,000-square-foot facility, is dedicated.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, December 2004. (Download PDF)

February: Arizona Board of Regents approves creation of the Tucson-based Critical Path to Accelerate Therapies Institute (later known as the Critical Path Institute or C-Path), to make drug development safer, faster, and cheaper.

• March: The “Meds and Eds” report is published, outlining a strategy for Arizona to ramp up its bioscience and educational efforts, in part by building the UA-Phoenix medical school.

• March 22: TGen headquarters open at the downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

• May 15: Gov. Janet Napolitano signs a bill enabling “angel” investors to secure tax credits of 30 percent for investment in tech firms and 35 percent for biotech and rural companies.

• Spring: Arizona Board of Regents approves the creation of the Strategic Alliance for Bioscience Research and Education at NAU, a community-faculty research consortium.

• June: BIO5 and Phoenix-based World Wide Wheat L.L.C. partner to develop new grain varieties that will help reduce obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol levels, and cancer.

• June 30: Mayo Clinic Collaborative Research Building opens on Mayo’s Scottsdale campus, housing researchers from Mayo and TGen’s Cancer Drug Development Laboratory and TGen Drug Development.

• August: Together with other partners of an international consortium, researchers at the UA’s plant sciences department and BIO5 publish the finished genetic sequence of the rice plant.

• Aug. 12: Arizona Disease Control Research Commission becomes the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission.

• September: InNexus, a Canadian drug-development firm, announces plans to move its headquarters and research laboratories to Scottsdale, Arizona.

• Sept. 25: Vicki Chandler, director of BIO5 Institute at UA, is the first Arizonan to receive the prestigious, $4 million National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award.

• Sept. 26: Mayo Clinic opens a heart-transplantation program on its Scottsdale campus, becoming Maricopa County’s first hospital approved for performing heart transplants.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, December 2005. (Download PDF)

Jan. 15: Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust commits $50 million to advance personalized medicine in Maricopa County.

• Spring: 501(c)(3) articles of incorporation filed for Science Foundation Arizona (SFAz). William Harris is named president and CEO of SFAz.

• March 16: C-Path announces an unprecedented collaborative agreement with eight major pharmaceutical companies--17 have now signed on--to share and cross-validate drug-testing methods.

• March 21: GE Healthcare signs an agreement with St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center to accelerate joint research and move discoveries more quickly into the clinical setting.

• June: Arizona launches the Biozona brand to promote the state’s bioscience industry.

• June 21: The Legislature approves $35 million in funding for the 21st Century Fund, a public-private partnership to invest in Arizona medical, scientific, and engineering research programs.  The funds flow to Science Foundation Arizona.

• July 1: Arizona’s “angel” tax credit goes into effect, allowing investors to secure tax credits for investment in early-stage technology firms and biotech and rural companies.

• July 10: Barrow Neurological Institute of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center opens a state-of-the-art, 430,000-square-foot neuroscience tower to patients.

• Sept. 14: IGC and TGen are awarded a $6.6 million grant for the creation of a national tissue bank of cancer specimens for The Cancer Genome Atlas Project.

• October: Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium receives $7.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging for collaborative research among AAC’s eight institutions.

• Oct. 10: UA College of Medicine-Phoenix in partnership with ASU officially opens as part of the larger downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

• Oct. 26: Banner Alzheimer’s Institute facilities officially open in downtown Phoenix, near Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center.

• Nov. 14: Battelle releases “Growing Southern Arizona’s Bioscience Sector: A Regional Roadmap,” a report on a comprehensive study and action plan for the biosciences sector in southern Arizona.

• Dec. 1: UA’s BIO5 Institute dedicates the Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch building and the UA College of Medicine Research building.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, December 2006. (Download PDF)

• January: SFAz awards its first grants, launching a $4 million fellowship program for first-year graduate students in science, engineering, and biomedical research at state universities.

• Feb. 22: W.L. Gore and Associates, Flagstaff's largest private employer, announces expansions of its medical-devices division in Flagstaff and, for the first time, in Phoenix.

• March 27: Tucson City Council votes to waive the city’s ban on “big-box” stores, allowing plans for University of Arizona’s Bioscience Research Park to move forward.

• April 13: Flagstaff celebrates the opening of TGen North, a collaboration between TGen and NAU to operate a new pathogen-genomics and biodefense research facility.

• May 9: Nine institutions unite to launch the Arizona Proteomics Alliance (AZPA), a statewide consortium focused on advancing the study of proteins in the human body.

• June: Drug developer Covance breaks ground on a new facility in Chandler; the 300,000 square-foot laboratory will employ 300-400 people initially, and ultimately up to 2,000.

• June 21: Gov. Janet Napolitano signs state budget that includes $25 million for the Phoenix Biomedical Campus and $100 million over four years for SFAz.

• June 25: Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding AG initiates bid to acquire Oro Valley-based Ventana Medical Systems Inc.

• July 25: TGen affiliate Systems Medicine Inc. of Tucson is acquired by Seattle biotech firm Cell Therapeutics for $20 million.

• July 30: Cancer Treatment Centers of America selects Goodyear as the site for a 210,000-square-foot cancer hospital, the for-profit company’s first hospital west of the Rocky Mountains.

• August: Biodesign Institute Building B, which opened in 2007, is Arizona’s first building to receive LEED-platinum designation for its environmentally friendly features.

• August: SFAz concludes its first, $33.6 million round of grantmaking with $15.1 million for 12 collaborations between researchers and industry partners who will provide matching funds.

• Aug. 3: Classes begin for 24 students in the inaugural class of the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix in partnership with ASU.

• Sept. 17: Gov. Janet Napolitano is named BIO “Governor of the Year” for her support of the biosciences and leadership as chair of the National Governors Association.

• Sept. 21: Banner Health, Arizona’s largest hospital system, announces plans for a merger with Sun Health Corp., which operates two Valley hospitals and Sun Health Research Institute.

• Sept. 27: NAU opens its Applied Research and Development building in Flagstaff. The building, called the nation’s most environmentally friendly university facility, is shortly awarded LEED-platinum designation.

• October: C-Path announces two grants to fund collaborations toward setting national standards for pharmaceutical research and patient treatment regimens; Congress passes a bill authorizing expanded public/private collaboration toward quicker and safer drug development.

• Oct. 2: The Stardust Charitable Fund gives $25 million to SFAz, triggering a matching appropriation from the Arizona Legislature that will fund grantmaking through 2008.

• Oct. 15: Bioscience High School opens. The specialty high school focuses on science education, in collaboration with downtown-Phoenix academic and scientific communities.

• Oct. 15: Arizona Biomedical Collaborative facility (joint use by ASU-UA) opens on Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

• Oct. 16: Battelle releases “Growing Northern Arizona’s Bioscience Sector: A Regional Roadmap,” a report on a comprehensive study and action plan for the biosciences sector in northern Arizona.

• Oct. 17: TGen and the Biodesign Institute at ASU join Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell on the Partnership for Personalized Medicine, a $45 million effort to study proteomics and the development of personalized diagnostics.

• November: Semafore Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Abraxis Bioscience Inc. expand in Phoenix; pharmaceutical giant sanofi-aventis breaks ground on a $40 million expansion in Oro Valley.

• Dec. 6: Caris Diagnostics purchases Molecular Profiling Institute, the first spinoff of TGen and IGC, for $40 million.

• Dec. 10: NAU receives a highly competitive $3.4 million grant from the National Math and Science Initiative to establish the NAUTeach program, a STEM teacher-preparation program.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, December 2007. (Download PDF)

• January: Chesnut Properties opens Papago Gateway Center, Arizona’s largest commercial wet-lab facility and the state’s first privately financed LEED-certified office/research facility.

• Jan. 29: Helios Education Foundation makes grant of $6.5 million to TGen to support the Helios Scholars Program, an internship program at TGen, for the next 25 years.

• Jan. 30: NSF awards $50 million to a group led by UA’s BIO5 to create the iPlant Collaborative, a cyberinfrastructure to help researchers tackle complex plant-science challenges.

• Feb. 5: Bioscience and investment professionals form the Translational Accelerator, LLC (TRAC), Arizona’s first venture fund to target early-stage bioscience companies.

• Feb. 7: Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche completes acquisition of Oro Valley-based Ventana Medical Systems Inc. for $3.4 billion, and pledges to expand operations in Arizona.

• Feb. 28: Researchers at UA announce decoding of corn genome after $30 million collaborative investigation begun in 2005 with three other research organizations.

• March 10: Arizona BioIndustry Association becomes more unified and representative, merging with Bioindustry Organization of Southern Arizona and naming new board of directors.

• March 27: ASU’s SkySong opens in Scottsdale; mixed-use development houses ASU commercialization and tech-transfer programs plus local and international companies.

• April 16: Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl named “Legislator of the Year” for 2007-2008 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the nation’s largest biotech trade group.

• June 5: Government of Luxembourg commits $200 million to biomedical-research projects involving TGen and the Partnership for Personalized Medicine, which includes researchers from TGen and ASU’s Biodesign Institute.

• June 9: German drug developer SYGNIS Pharma AG buys Amnestix, a TGen spinoff, in a $6.3-million cash-and-stock deal.

• June 30: U.S. FDA and its European counterpart approve new methods, developed by C-Path’s Predictive Safety Testing Consortium, for discerning potential toxicity of drug candidates.

• July 1: Gov. Janet Napolitano signs budget including: expanded tax credit for R&D; sustained funding for SFAz; bonding for $1 billion of university construction, including build-out of Phoenix biomedical campus.

• July 8: Arizona Economic Resource Organization (AERO) launches $325,000 “fund of funds” to commercialize innovations; planners project $200 million in new venture funding.

• July 14: ASU names Biodesign Institute director George Poste as chief scientist for new Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative to steer cross-disciplinary scientific research programs.

• July 15: Gov. Janet Napolitano announces formation of the Arizona STEM Education Center to strengthen science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

• August: UA and Canon USA Inc. announce plans for a Canon digital-photography and medical-imaging R&D center at UA’s Science and Technology Park, plus a $3 million grant to UA.

• Aug. 14: UA names William Crist to new post of vice president for health affairs, overseeing medical, nursing, pharmacy, and public-health colleges, plus Arizona Cancer Center.

• Sept. 2: Arizona’s largest hospital group, Banner Health, completes $316 million purchase of Sun Health Corp., adding two hospitals along with Sun Health Research Institute.

• October: The National Institutes of Health awards a $44 million contract to UA to join the National Children's Study, an investigation of environmental influences on the health of children nationwide.

• November: C-Path earns Science Foundation Arizona's biggest investment to date, $9 million, to support its work as an honest broker able to balance the interests of drug companies and the government agencies that regulate them.

• November 17: The Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies (NACET), a high-technology business incubator, holds its grand opening in Flagstaff.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, December 2008. (Download PDF)

• Jan. 7: C-Path announces formation of United States Diagnostics Standards to assess diagnostic tools before they are submitted to FDA for approval.

• Feb. 10: TGen announces strategic alliance with Van Andel Research Institute of Grand Rapids, Mich. Jeffrey Trent assumes leadership of both institutions.

• March: Biodesign Institute at ASU welcomes Alan Nelson as new director and appoints Joshua LaBaer to head a sophisticated personalized-diagnostics lab.

• March: Phoenix Children's Hospital launches Children's Neuroscience Institute under leadership of elite pediatric neurosurgeon P. David Adelson.

• March 26: Covance Inc. opens $175 million drug-development laboratory in Chandler. Facility may ultimately provide 2,000 high-wage jobs.

• April 7: A study of Arizona's bioscience sector by Battelle finds that bio accounted for $12.5 billion in revenues in 2007 and more than 87,400 jobs.

• April 13: The Flinn Foundation board of directors choose Jack B. Jewett - longtime Arizona leader in health care, education, and public policy - as its next president and chief executive officer.

• June 30: St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center and Creighton University announce affiliation to create Creighton medical-school campus at St. Joseph's in Phoenix.

• July 14: GateWay Community College announces it has secured $6 million to build bioscience business incubator on its campus.

• Aug. 6: Biodesign Institute at ASU launches $5 million Impact Accelerator to move research discoveries toward commercialization.

• September: Sun Mountain Capital signs on to build and manage $200 million venture "fund of funds" to back Arizona startups in bio, other high-tech fields.

• Sept. 8: ASU recruits 2001 Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell to lead new Center for Sustainable Health.

• Sept. 24: Chandler approves $5.7 million to establish bioscience- and high-tech-focused Innovations Technology Incubator.

• Sept. 30 IGC receives notice that it will assume a bigger role in Cancer Genome Atlas project, likely allowing IGC to triple its current workforce of 45.

• October: Nonprofit bioscience-research commercialization organization BioAccel (formerly Catapult Bio), makes first two grants to startup firms.

• Oct. 1: AZBio hires veteran southern-Arizona biotech entrepreneur Robert Green as its new president and CEO.

• Oct. 2: NAU and Arizona Cancer Center receive $15.7 million from National Cancer Institute to study cancer disparities among Native Americans.

• Oct. 18: Phoenix learns it will host Intel International Science & Engineering Fair, drawing 5,000 registrants, in 2013, 2016, and 2019.

• Nov. 2: BIO5 Institute at UA appoints as new director physician Fernando Martinez, expert in pediatric lung diseases.

• Nov. 3: Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies, opened in late 2008, graduates first company, biotech startup SenesTech Inc.

• Nov. 5: Abraxis Health dedicates its Phoenix nanobiologics manufacturing facility after $70 million upgrade, expansion.

• Nov. 23: Arizona Legislature restores $18.5 million in funding to Science Foundation Arizona, allowing fulfillment of previous grant commitments.

• Nov. 24: BIO5 Institute at UA receives $750,000 grant from Helios Education Foundation for Jr. BIOTECH program to support middle-school science teachers.

• Nov. 30: Banner Health and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center break ground in Gilbert on 120,000-square-foot joint endeavor, Banner M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

• Dec. 11: UA breaks ground on multi-use, 54-acre Arizona Bioscience Park with funding from $4.7 million federal grant.

• Dec. 21: ASU-led group receives $40.8 million to develop tools to detect radiation exposure. Partners include TGen, High Throughput Genomics, UA, and Scottsdale Healthcare Research Institute.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, January 2010. (Download PDF)

 January: A consortium including multiple UA researchers receives a $44 million Department of Energy grant to study and develop algae-based biofuels and bioproducts.

• Jan. 13: Sanofi-aventis dedicates its new Tucson Research Center in Oro Valley.

• Feb. 1: UA wins a $15 million stimulus grant to build a vivarium on the Phoenix Biomedical campus.

• Feb. 3: Vail Academy and High School, emphasizing STEM education, breaks ground at the UA Tech Park.

• Feb. 17: UA launches the Clinical and Translational Science Institute to spur bench-to-bedside innovation.

• March 18: A global coalition announces a new initiative to fight tuberculosis, with C-Path serving as the organization coordinating the work of at least 10 drug firms.

• March 19: VisionGate Inc., a Seattle medical-imaging company focused on early detection of cancer, announces that it is relocating its headquarters to the downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

• March 23: A key Arizona Legislature committee gives go-ahead to construct the $187 million Health Sciences Education Building on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

• March 31: St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center and Phoenix Children's Hospital announce an agreement to unite their pediatric services. 

• April: Four students at both ASU and UA win Goldwater Scholarships; five of the eight plan bio careers.

• April 14: Gov. Jan Brewer announces the creation of the Arizona Commerce Authority, a public-private partnership designed to attract firms in key growth areas, including the biosciences.

• April 15: Agribusiness giant Monsanto announces expansion of its Pinal County biotech-cotton research operations.

• April 30: The City of Chandler celebrates the opening of the Innovations Technology Incubator, whose tenants include several biotech firms.

• May 12: Ground is broken on the Health Sciences Education Building, a critical addition to the Phoenix Biomedical Campus that will enable the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix to increase its class size from 48 to 120 medical students per year.

• June: Predictive Biomarker Sciences Inc., partly owned by TGen, completes its first analysis of a cancer drug candidate, aiding a Canadian firm's preclinical research.

• June: Banner Alzheimer's Institute receives two federal stimulus grants worth $9.1 million to double its research space and purchase a cyclotron for molecular imaging. $4.5 million more is granted to study Alzheimer's prevention and support.

• June: UA purchases a former sanofi-aventis facility in Oro Valley to establish a drug-development branch of the university's BIO5 Institute.

• June 11: C-Path's Coalition Against Major Diseases, uniting some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, agrees to share pooled data from failed trials of Alzheimer's Disease drug candidates to spur new research.

• June 11: The Arizona Board of Regents approves the creation of UA Healthcare Inc., a new $1.2 billion UA-affiliated company, through the merger of University Medical Center Corp. and University Physicians Healthcare.

• June 30: Celgene Corp. announces the $2.9 billion purchase of Abraxis Bioscience Inc., which recently opened a major manufacturing facility in Phoenix.

• July: From July through October, Gov. Brewer announces discretionary grants of federal stimulus funding totaling $3.5 million UA's Arizona Center for Innovation, ASU's Venture Catalyst program, and NAU's collaboration with the Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies.

• Sept. 29: The International Genomics Consortium secures $59 million in federal contracts to continue its role as the biospecimen core resource for the Cancer Genome Atlas Project.

• Oct. 13: Ventana Medical Systems Inc., acquired in 2008 by Roche Group, announces an expansion of its Oro Valley operations that should see an addition of 500 jobs and $180 million in capital investment.

• Oct. 28: Gov. Brewer announces an award of $2.2 million to Science Foundation Arizona to support creation of an Arizona Biosignature Laboratory led by C-Path and Ventana. Also participating in the project are IGC and the Biodesign Institute at ASU.

• November: Mayo Clinic announces plans to build a $182 million radiation-therapy facility on its Scottsdale campus. The new center will use protein-beam technology to improve cancer-treatment results with less damage to healthy tissue.

• Nov. 3: The federal government's Therapeutic Discovery Project awards $9 million in federal tax credits and grants to 37 Arizona bioscience companies.

• December: Bonovo Orthopedics Inc., which develops orthopedic products for China's health-care market, closes a $10 million financing round, led by OrbiMed Asia Partners.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, January 2011. (Download PDF)

• Jan. 20: An FDA advisory committee recommends approval of a brain scan developed in part by Banner Alzheimer's Institute researchers that can identify plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease.

• Jan. 31: Phoenix Children's Hospital opens its new 11-story, $588 million facility, accommodating additional patients and new opportunity for recruitment of subspecialist researcher-physicians.

• February: Mayo Clinic and ASU announce an enhanced collaboration in bioscience-related fields, including the relocation of ASU's Department of Biomedical Informatics to Mayo's Scottsdale's campus.

• Feb. 22: Scottsdale-based Carefx, a maker of health-care information-technology software used in hundreds of hospitals and health-care systems, is sold to Harris Corp. for $155 million.

• March: St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center's Barrow Neurological Institute receives a $10.1 million donation to create the Barrow Center for Neuromodulation, for research in psychiatric and motor disorders.

• March: The Arizona BioIndustry Association hires Joan Koerber-Walker, previously head of the Arizona Small Business Association, as its new president and CEO.

• March 16: Maricopa-based Yulex Corp. announces that it has closed on a $15 million round of financing to expand its production of guayule-based natural rubber and feedstocks for bioenergy.

• March 21: UA's department of immunobiology and its Arizona Center for Aging earns the lion's share of an $11.8 million NIH contract to study declining immunity among the aging.

• March 23: Tucson-based HTG Molecular Diagnostics Inc. closes a $15.7 million round of financing to expand adoption of its multi-plex gene expression testing platform.

• March 29: Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon announces that Phoenix will be the headquarters for the nonprofit Institute for Advanced Health, founded by billionaire biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong.

• May 4: The Translational Genomics Research Institute announces that it has licensed its first drug, a compound that may prove effective against ovarian and endometrial cancer.

• May 18: The City of Phoenix pledges to contribute $14 million to the Arizona Cancer Center's development of a new outpatient clinic on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

• May 25: UA and Maricopa Integrated Health System sign an agreement to make MIHS the primary teaching hospital for the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix.

• July 27: The Institute for Advanced Health announces that it has assumed financial responsibility for National LambdaRail, a national fiber-optic network enabling exceptionally rapid transmission of health data.

• August: Oro Valley-based Ventana Medical Systems hires veteran cancer-diagnostics executive Mara Aspinall as its new president.

• Aug. 3: The FDA approves Anascorp, an antivenom for scorpion stings shepherded through the clinical-trial process at UA.

• Aug. 23: A team led by Paul Keim of TGen North and NAU report that they have successfully used whole-genome sequencing to trace a cholera outbreak in Haiti to United Nations peacekeepers from Nepal.

• September: The Arizona Alzheimer's Disease Core Center, a group of researchers representing seven institutions across the state, receives a $7.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

• Sept. 26: The $109 million Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center opens in Gilbert on the Banner Gateway Medical Center campus.

• Sept. 27: Mayo Clinic announces that it will expand Mayo Medical School to its Arizona campus, collaborating with AS on an embedded master's-degree program in the science of health-care delivery.

• October: UA establishes the STEM Learning Center to coordinate its efforts in education, outreach and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

• Oct. 17: The Critical Path Institute and the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium issue an important new guide to help researchers and pharmaceutical firms collect, pool, and compare data from clinical trials for drug candidates related to Alzheimer's disease.

• Oct. 21: Gov. Jan Brewer establishes February 2012 as Arizona Science and Technology Month in conjunction with an announcement of the first Arizona SciTech Festival.

• November: Chandler Unified School District announces that one of its high schools, Gilbert Perry High School, will offer a four-year program in STEM education that culminates in a special STEM diploma.

• Nov. 9: The Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health, headquartered in Phoenix, announces an agreement with the data-center technology firm IO to support the CSS Institute's development of the largest health-care data center in the world.

• Nov. 15: The Peoria City Council approves a three-year plan to partner with BioAccel and the Plaza Companies to develop and host the Peoria incucelerator that will offer reduced-rate leases for laboratory space and mentoring to startup medical device firms.

• December: The Arizona Commerce Authority establishes the $175,000 AZ Fast Grant program to assist small science, technology, aerospace, defense and renewable-energy firms develop their products.

• Dec. 2: The University of Arizona Cancer Center and St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center announce an affiliation agreement under which UACC staff and doctors will begin working with St. Joseph's on clinical research and patient care.

• Dec. 13: Mayo Clinic breaks ground on a $182 million facility that will feature its new pencil-beam proton therapy program, which will offer cancer patients a treatment option currently found at only a few sites in the United States.

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Roadmap Progress Report Brochure, January 2012. (Download PDF)

• January: Kedem Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian firm, moves its headquarters to Mesa and announces plans to open a laboratory in Scottsdale.

• Jan. 30: The FDA gives expedited approval of Vismodegib, a new skin-cancer drug first tested at Scottsdale Healthcare through a partnership with Translational Genomics Research Institute.
 
• February: The first Arizona SciTech Festival, featuring dozens of festivals, workshops, competitions, and presentations across the state, begins and attracts 200,000 participants over six weeks.

• Feb. 10: Ultrasound device-maker Ulthera announces plans to establish its global headquarters and bring 100 new jobs to a new location in Mesa.

• Feb. 28: Science Foundation Arizona launches the Arizona STEM Network to transform the state's educational system for science, technology, engineering and math. The program is bolstered by a $4 million donation by the Helios Education Foundation.

• March 29: A new Arizona law will enhance university research by protecting the intellectual property of companies that contract with universities for clinical trials.

• April: Cancer Treatment Centers of America and Northern Arizona University sign a deal to enable nursing students to train at the company's cancer center in Goodyear.

• April: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announces plans to open a 60,000-square-foot regional medical center in Gilbert in 2014.

• April 10: Biltmore Angels, a new investor group, is formed by three Arizona State University alumni to fund startup and early-stage high-tech companies in the Phoenix area.

• May: Banner Alzheimer's Institute, under the leadership of Dr. Eric Reiman, launches a $100 million clinical trial of an experimental drug that could help to delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

• May 1: The Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation, the nation's largest privately funded brain cancer foundation, moves to Scottsdale.

• June: UA College of Medicine-Phoenix receives its own preliminary accreditation from the national Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

• June 18: ASU's Biodesign Institute receives a $30 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a proteomics-based health monitoring chip to detect infectious diseases.

• June 28: Forty-two medical students attend their first classes at Creighton University's School of Medicine Regional Campus at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.

• Aug. 16: Accelr8 Technology Corp., which makes systems to rapidly identify and classify bacterial infections, announces the company's move from Denver to Tucson.

• Aug. 20: Mayo Clinic announces plans for a new $130 million, 217,200-square-foot cancer center building on its north Phoenix campus.

• September: The city of Flagstaff receives a $4 million federal grant to help build a new accelerator building next door to the existing incubator, Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, with plans to attract startup companies and employ 300 people.

• Sept. 7: Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, a leader in pancreatic cancer research at TGen and Scottsdale Healthcare, is part of a "Dream Team" that will benefit from the more than $81 million pledged during the entertainment industry's "Stand Up To Cancer" celebrity telethon.

• Sept. 11: HealthTell Inc., a company that uses a drop of blood for early screening and diagnosis of multiple diseases including cancer and Alzheimer's, opens at the Chandler Innovations incubator, which announces plans to expand by 50 percent.

• Sept. 25: BioInspire, a new incubator specializing in makers of medical devices, opens in Peoria with five startup companies.

• Oct. 3: Phoenix-based NantHealth builds a supercomputer-based high-speed fiber network to do the genomic analysis of a cancer tumor, a process that once took 8 weeks, in just 47 seconds per patient, said chairman Patrick Soon-Shiong.

• Oct. 5: UA opens the Health Sciences Education Building on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, enabling the class size of its Phoenix medical school to increase and NAU's Phoenix-based physician assistant and physical therapy programs to begin.

• Oct. 5: The formation of the TGen Center for Rare Childhood Disorders will enable whole-genome sequencing to be used to help children suffering from ailments that have been difficult or impossible to diagnose.

• Oct. 11: A formal dedication takes place at the 65-acre UA Bioscience Park in Tucson, the future home of bioscience laboratories, companies, and offices.

• Oct. 19: ASU begins developing applications for computers, tablets and mobile devices that will be distributed to Battelle to assist the research organization in promoting STEM education and learning.

• November: The Arizona Furnace Accelerator selects 10 companies that will receive $25,000 each in seed money and office space with hopes they will commercialize ideas developed out of the state's universities and health care system.

• December: Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert announces plans to break ground in January 2013 on a $62.6 million expansion project that will nearly double the size of its existing outpatient center.

• Dec. 4: Phoenix Children's Hospital announces the creation of the $50 million Ronald A. Matricaria Institute of Molecular Medicine, set to open in 2013, to assist children with difficult-to-treat and rare cancers.

• Dec. 6: The Arizona Board of Regents gives final approval to the construction of the $100 million UA Cancer Center-Phoenix at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, a partnership with St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.