HJNO Sep/Oct 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS  I  SEP / OCT 2021 55 Jeanette R. Weiland Vice President of Bio, Innovation, & Special Projects New Orleans Business Alliance (EDA) to build out wet labs in one of The Beach’s buildings. The building shown to us has 8,500 square feet that sat gutted and unfinished for almost 20 years — since the original construction of the building in 2002 — which made it a great choice for multiple reasons. Firstly, working within an existing build- ing, yet one that was already gutted, would enable the potential award money to go further. Secondly, froman economic devel- opment standpoint, it only made sense to put that empty space into commerce and double down on an existing research tech park at a public university as a place for STEM-oriented businesses to start cluster- ing. Thirdly, the access to the University of NewOrleans (UNO) in terms of faculty and student talent was an extremely attractive feature. And finally, when NOLABA con- sidered the beauty and affordability of the location, the free parking, and the energet- ic new leader (Rebecca Conwell, CEO) who immediately approached the idea with a solution-oriented mindset, the proposal seemed to be a no-brainer. From that point on, NOLABA and The Beach worked diligently to submit a joint application that outlined a business case to justify the EDAawarding our organizations with construction funds to build a landing spot for growing life sciences companies. At the beginning of 2021, the application was submitted, and in early July, it was fully awarded thanks to the EDA powering through a very large stack of applications in record time. Our organizations are proud to be the first to step up and proactively address this gap. Not only will actions such as these promote a future thriving industry and create the potential for a cluster of STEM businesses operating at The Beach, but they can also help address our state’s “brain drain” issue by providing a place for some of our most brilliant entrepreneurs to thrive and grow their companies (and jobs). The design is still in progress and aims to provide two wet lab suites for separate companies as well as incorporate an in- dependent GMP Clean Room intended to be available for rent to the public. GMP stands for Good Manufacturing Practices, and these clean rooms create strictly con- trolled environments that can regulate en- vironmental factors such as airborne par- ticles, temperature, humidity, air pressure and so forth. These rooms are necessary for life sciences companies that manufac- ture drugs and other medicinal products, medical devices and more. The rooms are also quite expensive and require ongoing maintenance by skilled staff, however, they are in high demand for the growing global bio industry, and our region does not currently have a GMP Clean Room that is open to the public for usage. Therefore, it is our hope that if and when New Orleans has such an asset, it will not only serve as a revenue-generating benefit for The Beach, but also serve as an attraction tool for out-of-state researchers and entrepreneurs. In a post-COVID world, NOLABA ob- serves companies all over the country al- tering their traditional workforce models in terms of housing employees in one cen- tralized location to now enabling remote work more often than not. Our organiza- tion continues to watch such trends and leverage them as we address the root caus- es of why our local economy is not thriving the way that we believe it can. n As described in my previous bio industry columns, the ultimate goal of building a competitive and sustainable bio industry in New Orleans is to have numerous life sciences companies operating and grow- ing here that improve the lives of humani- ty and create quality jobs and career paths for an array of our citizens. Over the years, some successful homegrown bio compa- nies have left our city and our state. One primary reason for this is due to the fact that New Orleans has historically had a gap in the sequence of steps that lead to the formation of bio companies and a thriving industry. As a reminder, it all starts with academic research, which then moves through the tech transfer process. When the technol- ogy/intellectual property becomes com- mercialized, a company is formed as a startup and spun out of the academic in- stitution to a place where it can incubate, such as the New Orleans BioInnovation Center. When successful startups outgrow the incubation phase and begin to scale, the immediate community needs to offer facilities that have the ventilation, plumb- ing, equipment infrastructure, and con- figurations necessary for successful and scalable wet lab operations. Enter the gap: New Orleans has traditionally had little to no housing options for growing life scienc- es companies that are past the incubation phase — until now. During late spring/early summer of 2020, the New Orleans Business Alliance (NOLABA) approached The Beach at UNO (formerly known as the UNO Research Tech Park) about a partnership where the two organizations would team up to ap- ply for construction funds from the U.S. Economic Development Administration