Florida universities, Scripps Florida: A powerful research team

October 17, 2003

This op-ed appeared in the Gainesville Sun, Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Tribune, Jacksonville Times-Union and Miami Herald.

By: Win Phillips
Win Phillips is vice president for research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Florida.

Last week’s announcement that The Scripps Research Institute plans to establish a major research center in the state is exciting news not only for the state, but also for its universities.

La Jolla, Calif.-based Scripps is one of the world’s largest and best-known biomedical research organizations. As Gov. Jeb Bush and others have noted, the institute’s decision to build a sister research campus in Palm Beach County puts the state squarely in the spotlight of the nation’s burgeoning biomedical industry.

Scripps Florida will give Florida’s universities a strikingly powerful partner in biomedical research. The natural synergy between this private, non-profit institute and the state’s universities has the potential to both foster biomedical breakthroughs and speed their delivery to doctors and patients.

Internationally recognized for its research achievements in cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease, Scripps also is an economic powerhouse with a staff of 3,000 and an annual budget of $280 million. Scripps has helped make La Jolla and nearby San Diego a national biotech center that today boasts nearly 500 biomedical or pharmaceutical companies – 80 percent within a three-mile radius of Scripps’ campus.

Florida’s universities have steadily ramped up biomedical research in recent decades. For example, UF’s Health Science Center received over $250 million in grants last fiscal year supporting biomedical research.

UF’s glaucoma treatment, Trusopt, FSU’s anti-cancer drug, Taxol, and other disease-fighting or life-enhancing products are among tangible results statewide. Through such facilities as UF’s biotechnology incubator, Florida universities have also fostered dozens of spin-offs, the biggest and most successful of which are publicly traded growing corporations with many employees and hundreds of millions in revenues.

The success of university-based startups and technology licensing initiatives has helped to grow Florida’s biotechnology industry, which currently employs 37,000 people with average wages above $40,000. The state, however, has always faced the challenges of competing against such giants as North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park and technology centers in California and the Northeast – regions with a far earlier start and a longer history of significant investment. Scripps Florida will help level the playing field. Equally important, it will create unique and powerful collaborative opportunities for Florida’s universities:

• Joint research initiatives. Florida universities and Scripps will marry expertise and facilities to become powerful teammates in research – and strong competitors for grants or other research opportunities.

• Research and scholarly exchanges. Scientists at Florida universities will collaborate with counterparts at Scripps, sharing knowledge, labs and personnel. Students will have opportunities for internships at Scripps, which currently supports university internships in California.

• Employment for graduates. The Governor’s office estimates that Scripps Florida will create 6,500 new jobs over the next 15 years, including many professional positions for university graduates in a variety of fields. Scripps spin-offs and other business activities will encourage additional professional opportunities.

• Enhanced commercialization. Scripps Florida will draw the attention of angel investors and venture capital firms that invest in biotechnology start-ups or small businesses. That can only benefit university start-ups or companies struggling for visibility and capital.

Gov. Bush has asked the Florida Legislature to help bring Scripps to Florida. Any state investment will reap significant rewards in terms of the economic activity that Scripps has the potential to attract to Florida. Economic models predict companies locating near Scripps will create 44,000 new jobs. The San Diego region alone drew $3.5 billion in venture capital in 2000 and 2001, compared with $3 billion for the state of Florida the same years, according to Gov. Bush’s office.

Most important, of course, are the biomedical advances that Scripps Florida will help foster. Current estimates for translating a research discovery into a commercial treatment range between $500 million and $800 million. Developing cures, in other words, takes a lot of money and even more effort. With a major institution like Scripps at their side, Florida’s universities’ efforts to do this highly ambitious but absolutely vital work have an even greater chance of success.