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Innovation in Life Sciences
On October 27th 2009, the Levin Institute, in conjunction with the New York Academy of Sciences, held a panel discussion in the “Innovate New York” series, entitled “Life Sciences.”
The panel included four speakers from the biotech and innovation fields in New York City: Rene Baston of the NYAS, Kenneth L. Davis, M.D. President and CEO of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, Director Jonathan Bowles of the Center for Urban Future, and biotech entrepreneur Donna Rounds. This discussion was moderated by Garrick Utley, President of the Levin Institute.
The discussion focused primarily on addressing New York’s relative deficiency in the field of biotech entrepreneurship despite its prestigious biomedical research, how policy makers are acting to remedy this, and what still needs to be done.
Jonathan Bowles began by introducing New York’s current biomedical entrepreneurial environment. What New York lacks, according to Bowles, is a major engineering program, affordable lab space— real estate, and any real entrepreneurial science community. Bowles acknowledges that the East River Science Park will help to mitigate the issue of affordable lab space, although there will need to be more of a pipeline coming out of universities to fill the park.
Regarding affordable lab space, Donna Rounds, who started a biotech company in New York City and moved it to Princeton, contended that although lab space is available, it is expensive and is an added cost in doing business. This added cost deters the few biotech venture capitalists in New York City from investing in homegrown enterprises. 
Rene Baston addressed the difficulty in transforming scientific prowess into business ventures in New York. He stated that although the scientific communities do exist in New York, there is no cohesive network that allows scientists to communicate throughout the communities. Baston sees this issue extended to the relationship between scientists and venture capitalists.
Kenneth Davis focused on investigating the missing link in the chain from the production of world-class research to the development of startups. To Davis, the main issue lies in optimizing a molecule; the problem isn’t good patents, he says, the problem is that patents are so nascent in their developments that people are very risk averse when it comes to developing the patents further due to high costs. Research institutions, therefore, tend to seek royalties from patents, rather than starting new enterprises, which would require fully developing the patents.
The question, ultimately, is how to encourage researchers to take risks on research and become entrepreneurs, how to create a network in which these entrepreneurs and researchers can collaborate effectively with venture capitalists and investors, and how to return to New York’s entrepreneurial roots and utilize the city’s research potential.
New York Academy of Sciences Innovate New York E-Briefing
