Guest post from Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO), on the launch of a new economic development strategy focused on the strengths of southern Arizona diagnostics.
The realm of bioscience is really big. It’s kind of like saying, “I’m really good at sports.” The natural question one might ask is, “What sport do you excel in? Baseball? Football? Badminton?” The same question can be asked of bioscience. Does your community excel in biochemistry? Food science? Animal biotechnology? With a broad and expansive industry like bioscience, no one community can successfully deliver all aspects that industry encapsulates much like no one person can be the best in every sport.
In 2006, the TREO Blueprint identified bioscience as an industry cluster TREO and the community should focus on based on the strengths and assets of the infrastructure, research and talent that stems from the University of Arizona. For seven years that has served us well as companies like Roche, Sanofi and HTG Molecular have entered the market. However, there is a common thread amongst those companies: diagnostics. TREO recently published a report titled, “A Comprehensive Focus on Diagnostics Business Growth in Southern Arizona.” The report outlines why our region needs to specifically focus on diagnostics and what steps we need to take in order to attract companies and talent to become an epicenter for the diagnostics field.
TREO’s analysis of the economic opportunities for the region has identified diagnostics as a focus area for recruitment and retention of bioscience-related companies.
TREO commissioned Dr. Raymond Woosley, former Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Arizona and Dean of the College of Medicine, and founding President of Critical Path Institute (C-Path), to obtain the guidance and consensus of the region’s stakeholders and identify specific steps that can advance the region’s economic strengths in biomedical sciences.
As part of the research and fact-finding conducted for this strategy, over 80 community thought leaders were consulted and numerous meetings of stakeholders were held. The broad expertise of this stakeholder group was critical for developing sound, specific strategies.
Download the complete report here
Michael Guymon, Vice President of Regional Development for Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, is responsible for planning, developing and implementing the business development strategies of TREO to attract, retain and expand jobs and capital investment for the region. He provides direct client and project management services with site selection/expansion projects.
