Portland Business Journal by Andy Giegerich , Business Journal staff writer
Date: Thursday, November 29, 2012, 2:28pm PST – Last Modified: Thursday, November 29, 2012, 3:05pm PST
A new bioscience industry incubator, the state’s first, will cap a busy year for Oregon’s suddenly bustling biotechnology sector.
The Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute will open the biotech incubator in Portland’s South Waterfront District. OTRADI is a state-funded effort to commercialize various research.
As we’ve reported recently, the state’s biotech industry is surging, with a collectively economic impact that’s increased four-fold since 2006.
We’ll have much more on the project in Friday’s paper.
What struck me is that OTRADI, led by interim director Jennifer Fox, is building the space, for about $1 million, in an existing building. It’s therefore saving on lots of hard-shell costs, which is helpful given that wet labs like the one the incubator will offer start at around $500 a square foot.
The announcement comes on the heels of revelations by Oregon Health & Science University last week that it has attained record tech transfer figures in such areas as procuring patents and private research funds.