About the Roadmap

“Arizona is globally competitive and a national leader in the biosciences in such fields as precision medicine, cancer, neurosciences, bioengineering, diagnostics, and agricultural biotechnology. It excels in offering a deep talent base, a critical mass of entrepreneurs and enterprises, and clinical excellence to turn discovery into firms, products, and talent.” – Bioscience Roadmap Vision: 2014-2025

Welcome to Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap, a long-term strategic plan originally commissioned by the Flinn Foundation in 2002 and updated in 2014 with the goal of Arizona becoming globally competitive and a national leader in select areas of the biosciences by 2025.

Roadmap Goals

Arizona's Bioscience Roadmap

The Roadmap features five overarching goals, as well as strategies and potential actions, to help the state achieve this vision.

The goals include:

1. Forming an entrepreneurial hub;

2. Turning research into practice;

3. Developing bio-talent;

4. Promoting Arizona’s convergence of research, health care, and commercialization to economic partners in neighboring states, Canada, and Mexico; and

5. Enhancing the state’s “collaborative gene” reputation.

The Roadmap is guided by Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap Steering Committee, a group of about 125 state leaders from the private and public sectors in science, health care, business, academia, and policy.

The Roadmap was compiled by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice based on research and input from Arizona leaders as well as national bioscience experts. Battelle produced a comprehensive study released in 2002 that found Arizona possessed many of the essential elements needed to become a global leader in niche areas in the biosciences, but must strengthen its biomedical-research base and build a critical mass of bioscience firms and jobs.

Search 1,200+ companies and organizations on the Arizona BioMap

Progress Metrics

The Flinn Foundation has commissioned Battelle, followed by TEConomy Partners, since the inception of Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap to track progress on performance measures involving the state’s bioscience sector.

The data pertaining to a consistent set of metrics, including jobs, wages, capital, research and development, and technology transfer, is gathered and reported publicly on a biennial basis.  

In addition, the Flinn Foundation tracks the progress of the bioscience sector each year by highlighting the state’s major developments. 

The latest Progress Report released in April 2024 highlights new data from 2023, including another record high in National Institutes of Health funding, as well as key bioscience advances such as the AZ Healthy Tomorrow initiative to address our workforce needs in medicine and health care. The foundation’s annual event featured a presentation by TEConomy Partners of the latest performance metrics—Biosciences in Arizona: 2024 Performance Review—as well as a panel discussion about the rapid growth of medtech in Arizona. 

For more information, view the Current Report and Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap: Advancing the Biosciences and Improving Health Outcomes.