It is challenging to find anyone who has not had their life impacted by cancer, a debilitating illness, or a degenerative condition.  These diseases affect not only the patient’s life, but those of their families and their surrounding community. The advancement of medicine is changing this trajectory, and that advancement will go right through Phoenix. 

It takes a resilient, pioneering spirit to drive translational discovery, turning a terminal diagnosis into a treatable disease. In Phoenix’s bioscience healthcare ecosystem, innovators find that pure research rapidly moves into an entrepreneurial mode. Collaboration, connection and capital come together in an environment created for all to succeed.

The heart of bioscience is the 30-acre Phoenix Biomedical Campus (PBC), with access to more than 20 institutes of research excellence within two miles. Anchoring the PBC in Downtown are the headquarters of precision medicine pioneers Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen)—an affiliate of the City of Hope and International Genomics Consortium (IGC), and top-ranked research universities Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Arizona (UArizona).  TGen and IGC have spun out more than 25 companies multiplying their momentum of discovery. With room still to grow, the PBC has completed two million of its six million square foot buildout. The latest addition, 850 PBC, opened in April with 227,000 square feet designed for innovation and collaboration by Wexford Science & Technology.

Phoenix is experiencing explosive growth with over five million square feet of new primary facilities and capital investment exceeding $3.25 billion to accelerate delivery for curing yesterday’s incurables. Expanding the city’s institutions of excellence in northeast Phoenix is Mayo Clinic, which is doubling its campus by adding 1.6 million square feet, along with top-ranked Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine and ASU’s Health Futures Center.  Mayo Clinic is the largest solid organ transplant center in the country. Midtown Phoenix is seeing expansions of Dignity Health’s Barrow Neurological Institute and Norton Thoracic Institute—the busiest and top ranked lung transplant center in the nation. Creighton University opens its Phoenix College of Medicine and Health Sciences in Fall 2021, joining the UArizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, located on the PBC.

Phoenix is ranked 5th in the nation among emerging life science markets according to the 2020 CBRE Life Science Report. This investment and growth is leading to more than  8,000 scientific, research and support professional opportunities in Phoenix over the next 18 months. In the past three years, Arizona’s non-hospital bioscience job growth is more than double the national average according to the Flinn Foundation’s Arizona Biosciences Roadmap compiled by TEConomy. Phoenix posesses the talent pipeline waiting to turn groundbreaking therapeutic discovery into a novel delivered cure. Access to available, quality, experienced talent is one reason Bristol Myers Squibb continues to thrive with its Phoenix presence, and with more people moving into Phoenix every day than any other U.S. city, there is no shortage of bright minds ready to advance the bioscience ecosystem.

A groundbreaking cancer vaccine for dogs is coming to market, spun-off from ASU startup, Calviri. Another ASU spin-off, OncoMyx Therapeutics is leveraging a virus for good as a treatment against cancer. Kalos Therapeutics, a 2019 Startup Stadium finalist, entered into a global partnership to deliver its precision oncological discovery to the market. Collecting excellence from everywhere is what Phoenix does best.

I am convinced the cure for cancer will come through Phoenix and its pioneers committed to this bold vision. Phoenix’s relentless pursuit of cures comes to BIO Digital 2021, with delegates accelerating personalized, life-changing breakthroughs. I invite you to engage with the City of Phoenix Global Marketplace delegation of innovators driving translational discovery.

About the Author

Kate Gallego, Mayor, City of Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.

Mayor Kate Gallego is committed to making Phoenix a city that is “stronger, smarter, greener, and better.” Mayor Gallego is the second elected female mayor in Phoenix history and one of the youngest big city mayors in the United States. She is leading the city to global status as a leader in bioscience, scientific research and advanced medical manufacturing. Under her leadership, the city has also made dramatic advances in transit and street transportation; equitable treatment of the city’s residents; and mitigation of the effects of climate change.  

This piece was submitted as part of the Global Marketplace at BIO Digital 2021. The NEW Global Marketplace at BIO Digital is designed to be the destination to showcase any region’s biotech strength and elevate its leading companies via high-energy, fast-paced presentations, coupled with live face-to face networking. Learn more here.

Republished with permission from BIO: https://www.bio.org/blogs/phoenix-innovators-are-driving-translational-discovery