StemCell Therapy

Researcher Leonard Zon, founder and director of the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children s Hospital, in a lab at the hospital in Boston. AP PHOTO

BOSTON -- In his offices at Boston Children's Hospital, Leonard Zon is busily developing cutting-edge stem cell therapies surrounded by fellow researchers, lab equipment and 300,000 striped, transparent zebrafish.

Zon's lab -- and the zebrafish -- are the results of an initiative begun nearly a decade ago to make Massachusetts one of the country's premier life sciences incubators.

That 2008 initiative, signed by former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, committed Massachusetts to spending $1 billion over 10 years to jump-start the life sciences sector -- attracting the best minds, research facilities and the venture capital funding.

By most yardsticks, Patrick's gamble has paid off. Massachusetts, and the greater Boston area in particular, are now seen as a top life sciences hub.

For Zon, and other life sciences leaders, the support has been transformative.

In 2013, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which is charged with distributing the state funds, awarded a $4 million grant to Children's Hospital to help establish the Children's Center for Cell Therapy. Some of the money went toward replacing the original aquaculture facilities at Zon's lab with state-of-the-art systems.

Zon said the changes helped him pursue stem cell therapies -- taking tissues grown from stem cells aimed at thwarting specific diseases and transplanting them into a diseased organ.

"Massachusetts is the best place in the world for biotechnology," he said. "It's been life-changing for us."

Zon's experience isn't unique.

NxStage Medical, Inc., a medical technology company founded in 1998 in Lawrence focused on end-stage renal disease and acute kidney failure, received nearly $1.8 million in tax incentives through the program. In 2013, Woburn-based Bio2 Technologies received $1 million in loan financing, helping it develop bone graft substitute implants.

The state's reputation as a magnet for life sciences also can be seen in the surge of construction in Boston and Cambridge, particularly around the Kendall Square area, where glass-lined office and research buildings have sprouted.

Travis McCready, CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, also pointed to the influx of grant money from the National Institutes of Health and funds from world-class academic and research institutions.

"By pretty much any measure we are considered the leading life sciences ecosystem in the U.S., and among the leading ecosystems in the world," McCready said.

McCready said the 2008 initiative helped create a framework for that growth, even as he acknowledged that not every company or research effort that receives funding succeeds.

Read more from the original source:
$1 billion life sciences plan bears fruit in Massachusetts - Lowell Sun - Lowell Sun

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