Richmond’s Activation Capital plans to break ground on a 102,000-square-foot innovation center later this year. The facility will serve as a hub for biotech innovation across region.
Last year, Activation Capital and the Alliance for Building Better Medicine were awarded a $52 million grant from the federal government through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Local and private investments added $14 million. The goal is to create a pharmaceutical manufacturing cluster in the region.
Chandra Briggman, president and CEO of Activation Capital, said the grant included $16.5 million to design and build the first phase of an innovation hub. The project will contain office and lab space and house several startups. Activation Capital added a $4 million match, but additional money will be required to complete the project. Briggman said the “money is in the pipeline” but did not state the source of the funds.
“The idea of it is to be an ecosystem in one building,” Briggman said “It is where small, mid-sized and large companies can come together in one space. It will also help us to address the dearth of lab space in the region.”
The project will be constructed on Activation Capital’s 34-acre business park in downtown Richmond. The plan calls for a second and third phase, but nothing has been finalized.
Briggman came to Activation Capital two years ago and has worked hard to make pharmaceutical manufacturing a key part of economic development within the region. She previously worked in Boston and said she saw the potential to make biotech and life sciences a central driver for development.
“We want to be known for something,” Briggman said.
Richmond has a major research institution with Virginia Commonwealth University, and the work of VCU professor Dr. Frank Gupton has played a major role in developing pharmaceutical research. The region also has a pharmaceutical manufacturing sector in Petersburg.
“When we talk about the pharma cluster, it spans Richmond with innovation and research,” she said. “It’s Chesterfield with scale-up activity and Petersburg with the manufacturing.”
Briggman said adding more physical space fits within the organization’s mission. A huge part of Activation Capital’s work is managing and leasing the VA Bio+Tech Park. Activation Capital had a an innovation hub in the past within the biotech center and the goal with this project is to reestablish something similar within the organization.
“We define it as an innovation center, because it’s a hub,” Biggman said. “I have worked in successful innovation districts, and these innovation centers are an important part of an ecosystem, because it is the epicenter of activity and where people converge.”
To help in the effort, the recently adopted federal spending bill included $1.5 million for Activation Capital. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Virginia Democrats, were able to include the funding in the bill. The money is designed to help Activation Capital accelerate commercialization in the life sciences and biotechnology sectors in the region. Briggman said the funding will be used to create programs within the innovation center and offer services to entrepreneurs in the sector. It complements the Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant.
“If you have a strong environment for entrepreneurship to grow and if you have the specialized space for it to grow and then you have the programmatic support for the entrepreneurs, it should create a flywheel that ends up creating a continual pipeline of successful entrepreneurs in the region,” Briggman said. “And over five years, we can develop a specialization that can be identified around the country.”
