Best Bets to Leapfrog
Arizona has made Big Bets in building its nascent bioscience economy in recent years. Is it prepared to make at least three more?
First, to form a virtual academic health sciences center in downtown Phoenix as a collaborative partnership among TGen, the UA colleges of medicine and pharmacy, and the ASU College of Nursing, imaginative, flexible leadership and new models are needed. With the participation of nearby teaching hospitals the outcome could be a rich, diverse educational experience for faculty and students beyond that available at most medical schools today. The result: more health care professionals to meet Arizona’s fast-growing population needs and to position Arizona more competitively for national health care and research funding.
Second, building an innovative place is not accidental; it is a matter of sustained focus. The once disparate areas of bioscience, information technology, and nanotechnology are becoming increasingly intertwined, and are already inseparable components of human medicine. We need to target the Three Big O’s — Bio, Info, and Nano — for future research growth.
“The potential represented by the convergence of biology, medicine, and computing is gaining recognition, but equally influential will be a fusion of these disciplines with bioengineering, materials science, and electronic technologies,” in the view of George Poste, Director of the Biodesign Institute at ASU. “Miniaturization engineering is creating an entire new realm of on-body/in-body micro devices and sensors, including ‘smart’ devices that adapt to changes in a patient's condition and issue automatic medical alerts or dispense treatment without intervention by health care personnel. These technologies will accelerate the adoption of new approaches to remote diagnosis and long-distance monitoring of a patient’s health status and treatment compliance.”
Third, Arizona needs to invest in building quality research programs, as other states are doing. Georgia, for example, has invested $375 million to recruit new Eminent Scholars — and the result is quadrupled research dollars flowing into that state. California voters authorized $300 million a year over 10 years to fund research that holds promise of finding treatments and cures for serious diseases. Arizona should take a dramatic step forward by launching an effort to recruit more top scientists, build new research consortia modeled after TGen, and generate greater revenue streams. An innovative approach would be to establish an “Arizona Science and Technology Foundation” to lead the way.
The Flinn Foundation will work to expand the support and participation of other organizations in helping to build Arizona’s bioscience economy, especially its biomedical research base. The Foundation’s Board of Directors has adopted a multi-year commitment to this goal and has pledged and distributed millions of dollars to achieve it.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes that the companies and regions that will prosper in the 21st century — especially in the United States — will be those that master the innovation process. U.S. cities and states are learning that companies competing on the basis of innovation are most likely to choose places that offer assets that help spur innovation. The winners possess a critical mass of talented people located in close proximity to one another, who have frequent opportunities for easy, cross-disciplinary exchange across institutional boundaries.
Arizona is well positioned to move to the forefront in the nation’s bioscience economy — it is still a young state with a relatively small pool of key leaders; it has a recent history of institutional collaboration; it has a long-term strategic plan in Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap; and it has already taken important steps.
The seeds have taken root. With committed leadership and sustained investment, they can blossom into flourishing economic returns and healthier outcomes for Arizonans.
John W. Murphy
President and
Chief Executive Officer