Clean rooms are a hot commodity in the biotechnology world. Roanoke officials would like to add some to the city’s growing biotech scene, and Virginia lawmakers could make $5 million of space for them in the state budget.
Biotech businesses find clean rooms crucial to manufacturing circuit boards, medical equipment, optical products, pharmaceuticals and more. They provide a contamination-free environment with heavily filtered air pumped into and out of the space.
Cell and gene therapy businesses need them, and Roanoke leaders are looking to add such employers to the biotechnology incubator taking shape on South Jefferson Street.
The site, a former Carilion Clinic building, will feature about 30,000 square feet of shared lab space when it opens late this year. The General Assembly in 2022 approved $16 million for the incubator.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s budget for this year includes $5 million more to the city for “advanced laboratory space for new cell/gene therapy companies.” The House of Delegates echoed that outlay among its budget amendments. The funding was in the Senate budget but has since been pulled, said Roanoke Economic Development Director Marc Nelson.
Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, whose committee assignments include Finance and Appropriations, said it may yet survive.
“Wasn’t a budget amendment I was focused on. Anything is possible in the budget conference,” he wrote in a text message exchange.
The House and Senate have approved their versions to the 2024-2026 biennium budget, and conferees from each will meet to decide which items survive the process before sending Youngkin the document. This year’s session is scheduled to end Feb. 22.
Renovations to the Jefferson Street building began last summer, and a couple of different companies in need of clean room space “came onto our radar,” Nelson said. The building’s current setup and budget were not designed for that kind of work, he said.
“We noticed that this was something that we really needed to have,” Nelson said. “And so we went to the state and lobbied for it to get the funding.”
A group, including Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC; Erin Burcham, executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Innovation Alliance; and some Carilion officials, are in talks with prospective tenants.
[Disclosure: The Roanoke-Blacksburg Innovation Alliance and Carilion Clinic are among our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
House budget documents show that the city would have to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority and provide a matching amount for the project. The city would also have to show that an anchor tenant is committed to operate there.
Nelson said that until the budget is decided, he won’t know whether the match would be in cash or in-kind contributions. Nor is it clear how many clean rooms the city, which is handling the renovation, would build, Nelson said.
“We’re not all the way across the finish line yet,” he said.
Though funding would hinge on an anchor tenant, that company wouldn’t be expected to stay forever, Burcham said. The innovation alliance, Virginia Tech and Carilion will work to help the companies leasing the lab spaces succeed, she said. Meanwhile, more real estate development could come, she said.
“Our vision for this clean room space is this would be a place to incubate the companies as they grow,” she said. “Then they’ll spin out, and we’ll have available space for the next wave of companies coming into the region.”
A smaller, modular clean room is in process at Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. A $100,000 grant from economic development initiative GO Virginia and $221,500 in non-state money will fund that project. The space, which will be used for teaching as well as research, is expected to be complete in March.
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