Bioscience group visits Worthington

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — As the effort continues to expand bioscience-related industry throughout Minnesota, Worthington and the surrounding region has seen a key component of that growth.

That’s the opinion of Dale Wahlstrom, chief executive officer of the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, who was in Worthington Thursday for a meeting with regional bioscience leaders. The meeting, which took place at the Prairie Holdings Group building, was coordinated by the Worthington Regional Economic Development Corp.

Prior to the meeting, Wahlstrom explained the BioBusiness Alliance’s role in furthering growth in that arena.

“We were kicked off four and a half years ago (by Gov. Tim Pawlenty), and our mission is to catalyze the growth of the bioscience industry in the state,” Wahlstrom, a retired Medtronic executive, said. “We have three components, three phases, to that.”

Initially, BioBusiness Alliance launched an assessment phase. Wahlstrom said “a couple” of consulting firms were hired to complete an assessment of where Minnesota stood in the biosciences — and where it could potentially expand. A paper was published in August 2006 and is on the group’s Web site at www.biobusinessalliance.org.

After that a second stage, which Wahlstrom called the “divisioning and road map phase,” got under way. The BioBusiness Alliance partnered with Deloitte Consulting LLP of Minneapolis for a two-year program that resulted in the publication of 13 papers pertaining to where the world — and Minnesota — was trending over the next 20 years in the areas of medical devices, pharma/biologics, animal health, food, renewable energy and renewable materials. A primary goal of the “Destination 2025” stage is to determine where Minnesota could exploit its strengths best, Wahlstrom said.

Bekah Kent, who manages the BioBusiness Resource Network, said her work with the BioBusiness Alliance is focused on Destination 2025.

“We provide direct resources to bioscience companies to help them be successful in our state,” Kent said. “The other side is to lead major infrastructure and environmental projects that have statewide importance. … Basically, this is getting all these things that companies need to do well to be successful in our state.”

Thursday marked the beginning of the final phase, which is education and implementation.

“We’ll be taking the recommendations and putting them into action,” Wahlstrom said. “Why we’re here is to work on leveraging the strengths that the Worthington area has and building on them.”

“The people that need to create the jobs need to be at the table,” Kent added. “That’s why we’re having this discussion … and having others around the state.”

The BioBusiness Alliance is scheduled to have discussions today in Redwood Falls, Tuesday in Rochester, and March 4 in Fergus Falls as well as Fargo/Moorhead.

Glenn Thuringer, WREDC manager, said components of Thursday’s discussion will be one of the focal points at the upcoming WREDC Bioscience Conference, scheduled for April 2-3.

“We’re formulating some questions that will be based on today’s interaction,” Thuringer said. “We’re thinking they will be based on implementation, with the two categories being animal health and renewables.”

Wahlstrom noted that breakout sessions to discuss steps the region can take in these categories will likely be part of the Bioscience Conference.

“Worthington is blessed with a lot of capability,” he said. “There are several companies involved in the biotech and animal health arena … and renewable energy. All around this community, what we focus on in this evolving world, Worthington has it.”

Tags: news, worthington, bioscience, wredc