St. Louis Gaining National Biotech Distinction with Success of BioBelt Initiative

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The mention of St. Louis often brings thoughts of their famous silver arches to mind. A carefully planned strategy by civic and business leaders aims to change that. The initiative, coined "BioBelt - the Center of Plant and Life Sciences," is well on its way to developing the Saint Louis area as a major biotech site for both plant and life sciences. According to figures from the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, the nascent cluster currently provides over 25,000 jobs and an annual direct and indirect economic impact of $7.3 billion.

"Hundreds of millions of capital dollars are being spent by both the public and private sector on new facility construction. Projects we have reported on include Sigma-Aldrich's $55 million Life Science and High Technology Center, which doubled the company's local research and development laboratory capacity. Wyeth BioPharma is in the midst of a facility expansion of over $200 million to increase production of ReFacto^®, a recombinant factor VIII product for the treatment of hemophilia A," notes Annette Kreuger, Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry Manager for Industrialinfo.com. "We began tracking the recently opened $75 million non-profit Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in 1999. These and the volume of other future possible investments that we're monitoring are evidence of how successful the initiative actually is. It has moved well beyond theory and is becoming a sound reality."

Universities have come to the dance with multiple bio-related Research and Development lab projects, with some ranging up to over $70 million. There is increasing evidence of the private and public sectors forming alliances that are beneficial to both concerns. Local developer the DASCO Group is considering two major facility projects, one strictly commercial and one onsite at Washington University.

The Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) of St. Louis is also a magnet in terms of attracting companies and organizations to the region. The MBG was founded over 140 years ago by Henry Shaw to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment, in order to preserve and enrich life. Now designated as a National Historic Landmark, MBG is home to one of the largest international research centers in the world. Concerns ranging from the tiny biopharmaceutical development company Sequoia Sciences (San Diego, California) to the Botanical Society of America (BSA), one of the world's largest societies devoted to the study of plant and allied organisms, have recently announced their impending moves to MGB.