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Next weekend, Indy Chamber executives and central Indiana civic and education leaders will travel to Boston to find actionable ideas for growing the innovation ecosystem in central Indiana in the areas of life sciences and technology. As an Indy Chamber board member, I’m joining the trip, which is the latest in the Indy Chamber’s Leadership Exchange program whereby city and state leaders study how other cities have moved the needle on important initiatives.
Previous LEX visits have proved to be catalysts for action. In 2019, Indy leaders visited San Antonio, Texas, to learn about that city’s efforts to reduce homelessness. Indy’s low-barrier shelter initiative, which this year received $20 million in state funding, can be traced to the San Antonio visit. A 2018 LEX trip to Denver and last year’s LEX trip to Zurich, Switzerland, helped build momentum for an expanded city and state effort around modern youth apprenticeships.
The impetus for LEX Boston stemmed from the recent separation of IUPUI into two universities. There is a growing consensus among civic and government leaders that resurgent efforts by both IU and Purdue in Indianapolis could spur economic opportunity in the region, especially in high-growth and research-intensive areas such as technology and life sciences. As such, President Mung Chiang of Purdue University and President Pam Whitten of Indiana University will serve as co-chairs of the Boston LEX delegation.
While today Boston is viewed as a biotech powerhouse, Indy Chamber CEO Matt Mindrum points out that Boston’s rise in the sector is a recent phenomenon. In 2008, Boston was home to only one of the top biopharma firms. Today, it is home to 18. Also in the 1970s, Boston and Indy were economic peers in terms of per capita income. Today, Boston’s is significantly higher than Indy’s.
Boston’s economic growth has been fueled by the talent attracted to, and emanating from, its many research universities, along with the intentional strategies around technology transfer and investment by the state of Massachusetts and the pursuit of federal grants. The level of educational attainment, especially in science, technology, engineering and math, has become more important as technology and life sciences sectors play a more critical role in driving economic growth. Boston has the densest concentration of higher education assets in the nation, and 52% of Boston residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Indianapolis can take a page out of Boston’s playbook and build on our current life sciences assets with intentional strategies around university and industry collaborations, frictionless university research technology transfer protocols, easier access to growth capital, investments in labs and R&D space, and strategies to harness the talent and ideas of the largest and most successful pharmaceutical company on the planet: Eli Lilly and Co., headquartered in Indy.
Plans by both IU and Purdue to invest in Indy and increase enrollment in STEM programs will be critical for providing the necessary talent pipeline. Now IU and Purdue must look for opportunities to partner, together leveraging IU’s strengths in medical research and Purdue’s strengths in engineering to go after federal dollars and industry partnerships in biotech and biomanufacturing.
The time is ripe for Indy to place its next big bet. Our decades-long sports strategy has proven that intentional investments and focus produce incredible results. The same dedication, focus and investments should now be dedicated to building up central Indiana’s life sciences ecosystem. The LEX Boston initiative is another important step in building the next economic engine that propels Indy and the region forward.•
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Feltman is publisher of IBJ and CEO of IBJ Media. Send comments to nfeltman@ibj.com.
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