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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowPurdue University plans to partner with Elanco Animal Health to develop a shared-use facility on three acres near the future Elanco global headquarters on the west edge of the White River in Indianapolis, state and company officials announced Thursday afternoon.
The facility will be part of newly-created OneHealth Innovation District, according to an announcement made by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb during Indiana’s 2024 Global Economic Summit at the Indiana Convention Center.
Purdue President Mung Chiang and Elanco CEO Jeff Simmons signed a shared memorandum of understanding with the Indiana Economic Development Corp. to establish the research innovation district, which will be “dedicated to optimizing the health of people, animals, plants and the planet.”
The facility is expected to help create and improve innovation where industry and academia can collaborate, and will include office, wet lab and incubator space.
Elanco’s 220,000-square-foot headquarters is expected to open in the second quarter of 2025.
Elanco also announced a commitment to purchase an additional 12 acres to the north of the headquarters for future expansion and the development of the Epicenter for Animal Health.
“For life-changing innovations to move from idea to reality, they must grow in the right environment,’” said Simmons in a written statement. “The many partners in the Indianapolis’ OneHealth Innovation District will set Indianapolis apart as an area where innovators will find a vast ecosystem of support, including one of the world’s leading universities, funding, lab space, collaboration with many other innovators and companies and most significantly shared technical development and pilot plant facilities to manufacture and scale innovations.”
The news comes as the IEDC pursues a sale of more than 50 acres of the former General Motors stamping plant property that includes the Elanco development. The state is in the running for multiple technology-driven hubs, having already been given the green light last October as one of 31 tech hubs designated by the federal Economic Development Administration.
But the Heartland Bioworks-led consortium is also awaiting word on whether it will receive another $50 million to $75 million in investment planned as part of a second phase of funding, which will go to anywhere from five to 10 hubs across the country.
In its announcement Elanco said it also plans to seed a $2 million initial investment into a new animal health venture fund that will be run by the IEDC. It also plans to co-lead efforts on a One Health summit planned for this autumn in Indianapolis, alongside Purdue, the Applied Research Institute, BioCrossroads, BiomEdit and AgriNovus.
The Purdue portion of the project is expected to give students and researchers opportunities to continue research through Purdue University in Indianapolis, which launches July 1 after splitting from IUPUI.
Indianapolis research interests are expected to include study of the microbiome, antimicrobial resistance, computational biology, comparative genomics and livestock sustainability, among others, according to the university.
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Good news!
This is great news for Indianapolis, especially for downtown.
These types of partnerships should have been pursued decades ago.
We’d probably be a major tech hub now if we had.