The Road to Regaining Dominance

For the past five years, the university has averaged about 35 technology licenses per year in the areas of biotech and pharma. It has some blockbusters; the anti-AIDS drug Ziagen, for example, which was licensed to GlaxoSmithKline in 1999. Some licenses are with in-state companies, but many are spread across the globe.

The university doesn’t have any license-local clause. Its objective is to maximize value for the university and the state, Schrankler says. Other technologies are more frequently licensed to Minnesota firms, but with biotech it is difficult to find the right match within Minnesota’s borders.

The report offers the daunting recommendation to “develop a biologic and biopharmaceutical industy in Minnesota.” As a first step, however, the state should work on expanding its diagnostics and monitoring industry, it says.

“What that industry forces you to do is to really learn the biological world,” Wahlstrom says, which will hopefully make the leap to a biotech industry possible someday. “Diagnostics is probably the best way for us to enter that market right now.”

Just as medical devices are converging with biologics and biopharma, these industries are converging with diagnostics. “Active and aggressive participation in this industry will allow Minnesota to build the community infrastructure that will attract management and investment.”

Finding a Sustainable Energy Path

Similar challenges exist for renewable energy, says Wahlstrom. “We don’t have that stuff underneath,” he says. It’s missing the infrastructure—things like public policies, specialized legal counsel, a trained workforce, and all the other components that help an industry run smoothly.

Combustible biomass—burning raw materials to generate heat or electricity—could serve the same role that diagnostics play in biotechnology. It’s an important first step that can be made without waiting for technological breakthroughs.

Ultimately, the goal is to make Minnesota a leader in “sustainable biomass supply,” the report says. This includes creating task forces to develop a set of best practices for harvesting materials in ways that cause the least disruption to the environment, as well as the food and material markets.

“Our highest recommendation in that area is that Minnesota needs to look at becoming, in effect, an oil well for biomass,” says Wahlstrom.

James Mennell, president of Renewafuel, a Rosemount-based biomass company, likes the idea of a statewide effort to answer the complicated economic and ecological questions surrounding the industry. Renewafuel, which makes biomass briquettes that can be burned in most existing coal burners, has paid for research of its own, but he suspects that not all companies can afford independent studies.