A consortium of groups has set out to brand Lansing as a bioscience destination in a move to better position the region within the industry in Michigan, and maybe even begin to craft a state version of North Carolina’s famed Research Triangle.
In launching the Michigan’s Health Core brand initiative, the private- and public-sector partners want to highlight and leverage the Lansing region’s biosciences strengths and grow the local sector.
“It’s a testament to the advancement and opportunities within the life sciences and medical technology industry in our region,” said Keith Lambert, chief operating officer for the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP), the economic development organization in Eaton, Ingham and Clinton counties. “We’ve recognized that there’s so much unconnected potential. Michigan’s Health Core is really about bringing together all those different pieces.”
To create a brand identity, the backers behind Michigan’s Health Core want to better connect with other markets that are home to growing bioscience clusters. That includes leveraging the work in Ann Arbor, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Detroit to form “our own kind of research triangle” between the I-96 and I-94 corridors across the state, Lambert said.
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“It’s understanding what each is really good at and helping to build each other up. We think Lansing’s stronger when Grand Rapids and Detroit are stronger. We see our competition as out of state and (want to) build up more of a ‘super region’ across Michigan that is competitive (nationally),” he said.
“We all have our own specializations and competitive advantages that, from a statewide perspective, it’s important to understand and leverage properly to make a bigger bang against the Minnesotas and the Massachusetts and a lot of the heavy hitters across the country.”
In addition to LEAP, Michigan’s Health Core includes Michigan State University, the MSU Research Foundation, health systems University of Michigan Health-Sparrow and McLaren Greater Lansing, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Michigan Biosciences Industry Association (MichBio). Biosciences companies Emergent BioSolutions Inc., Neogen Corp., and Niowave Inc. also are involved in the effort.
Driving awareness
The partnership behind Michigan’s Health Core hopes to “create economic opportunity” through greater recognition and awareness of the Lansing region’s bioscience cluster that can draw investments in health care and life sciences, medical technology, research and development, and advanced manufacturing in pharmaceuticals and medical devices, Lambert said.
The growth can come from companies already based in the Lansing area, outside firms investing in the region, or startups, particularly MSU spinoffs and companies started by graduates.
“We’re looking at attracting new market entrants to come in, whether they’re in technology or manufacturing associated with health care, and demonstrate that we’re a great place for them to continue to grow their business,” Lambert said.
The bioscience industry presently employs about 3,000 people in the Lansing region in manufacturing and medical technology, plus several thousand more at health care providers, he said.
As of 2021, the bioscience sector employed an estimated 44,340 people in Michigan at more than 2,400 companies, according to the most recent biennial economic report from Bio Industry Organization (BIO), a national trade group.
Medical devices and equipment companies accounted for 454 of Michigan’s life sciences establishments — a 22% increase from three years earlier. The state ranks fifth nationally, up from sixth in 2018, according to BIO.
Employment in Michigan’s life sciences sector grew by 5.6% from 2018 to 2021, ranking the state among the top 15 in the nation by industry size, according to the BIO report prepared by Columbus, Ohio-based TEConomy Partners LLC.
“Michigan’s Health Core is an innovative approach to move technologies from the lab bench to the bedside more efficiently and accelerate the growth of the statewide life sciences cluster with the potential to yield new company formation, high-paying jobs, attraction of capital investment, advance the regional economy, and strengthen Michigan’s position as a biosciences leader,” said Stephen Rapundalo, the president and CEO at Ann Arbor-based MichBio.
MSU, which is part of the University Research Corridor (URC) with the University of Michigan and Wayne State University in Detroit, plays a key role in Michigan’s Health Core. In 2022, the URC collectively generated $20 billion in economic activity and accounted for $2.6 billion, or 91%, of academic R&D in Michigan.
Michigan’s Health Core “aligns with our values by working with those across Greater Lansing through discovery and innovation,” said Norman Beauchamp Jr., MSU’s executive vice president for health sciences. “We look forward to sharing our stories of transforming health to attract new health care professionals and industry partners seeking to join us in the discovery and implementation of ways to improve the health and wellbeing of our community, state, and nation.”
Seeking diversification
In creating Michigan’s Health Core, LEAP and other partners also want to further diversify the Lansing-area economy. Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing have tripled in size in the region since 2000 as other industrial sectors declined or held steady.
By building greater brand awareness for what the region has to offer, the partners seek to elevate the local bioscience sector to a far larger economic status, Lambert said.
“We looked at this and said, ‘What if we put more effort in terms of collaborating and connecting and making sure all these pieces are aware of each other? Can we further that growth and help to continue to further diversify?’” he said. “We’re really good at automotive. We’re getting EVs (electric vehicles) and that’s all great and very important. But we don’t want to be a one-trick pony in manufacturing or in technology. We don’t want to be overly dependent on any one industry, so we saw this as an important opportunity that’s already naturally growing organically. Can we supercharge that?”
Michigan’s Health Core originated in early 2020 “to focus and rally around this cluster,” Lambert said. The initiative soon got sidetracked with the onset of the pandemic as partners refocused on local response efforts. The partners later went back to the original purpose and delved into research and data analysis on the local industry.
A $1 million U.S. Economic Development Administration grant supported the work, which led to the region’s first “game plan” for biosciences and to the formation of two medical technology accelerator programs.
Launching the branding initiative is the culmination of the prior work, Lambert said.
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