News

Roanoke labs project awaits final budget approval

The intended site for 30,000 square feet of lab space is a Carilion-owned building on South Jefferson Street.

An estimated 30,000 square feet of shared lab space could go online in Roanoke within a year and a half, assuming that the General Assembly votes Wednesday to approve a compromise budget that includes nearly $16 million in state funding for the project.
The lab initiative, which was announced in December and also includes a smaller lab facility at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, is designed to meet what economic development and technology leaders have for years seen as a critical need: room for researchers and entrepreneurs – especially those in the region’s burgeoning life sciences cluster – to do their work.

The intended site in Roanoke is a building on South Jefferson Street that’s owned by Carilion Clinic and is centrally located to biomedical and health science research that’s already underway in the city: It’s less than a half-mile from either the campus that houses the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute or the downtown Roanoke home of RAMP, a regional technology business accelerator.

The building, which formerly housed some of Carilion’s pediatric services and is now mostly vacant, must still be fully evaluated for its suitability for the project, Carilion CFO Don Halliwill said Tuesday.

Once the General Assembly approves the budget – and the governor signs off on it – the project partners will have $15.7 million to put toward renovating the building, work that is expected to take 16 to 18 months, according to Brett Malone, president and CEO of the Corporate Research Center. The city of Roanoke is contributing another $1.9 million to the project, said Marc Nelson, the city’s director of economic development.

Read more here.

Recent News

03/21/2023

Mason leads planning study to position Northern Virginia as a premier location for the life science industry

During the past several years, industry demand for a skilled life science workforce has been surging. In Virginia, while there are currently shortages in almost all health-related professions, little is known about whether there is an adequate supply of life science workers to meet the needs of employers. Now George Mason University is working toward

03/21/2023

California invests $50M to partner with Civica Rx on insulin manufacturing

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a new contract with nonprofit drugmaker Civica Rx, a move that brings the state one step closer to creating its own line of insulin to bring down the cost of the drug. Once the medicines are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Newsom said at a press conference

03/07/2023

RAMP Welcomes 5 Startups into Spring 2023 Cohort

From designing battery electric spotter tractors to developing individualized neuro-oncology treatments for aggressive gliomas, the five companies accepted into RAMP’s Spring 2023 Cohort span the gamut of technology, health science and life science innovation. “We are thrilled to welcome these inspiring entrepreneurs and help them accelerate their vision,” said RAMP director Lisa Garcia. “Not only