Dallas is part of a consortium of cities in Texas vying to be the site of a future national headquarters of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). This new government agency will support the development of high-risk, high-reward biomedical and health research to drive breakthrough solutions and real-world impact.
Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio have formed a consortium and responded to ARPA-H’s request for a proposal to consider the lone star state as one of the agency’s three national headquarters, leading to an influx of jobs, funds, talent, and clout in the industry. ARPA-H will be a new agency under the National Institutes of Health, and its three headquarters will operate as a hub and spoke to create a nationwide network of partners to support the needs of ARPA-H programs and its mission. It will be led by biotech development veteran Renee Wegrzyn and armed with a $2.5 billion budget.
The NIH has established that the first hub will be near Washington, D.C., focusing on stakeholder engagement and operations. Another hub will focus on customer experience and drive testing, adoption, access, and trust of ARPA-H projects. The third hub will be an investor catalyst to make the ideas a reality.
Headquarters locations will likely benefit from an infusion of capital, talent, and energy in the biomedical sector. San Antonio and Austin both have strong cases to make. San Antonio has more inexpensive property, the largest military health complex in the nation, three national disease centers, and the only NIH National Primate Center with the highest level of biosafety laboratory. Healthcare and bioscience are San Antonio’s largest economic sector. Austin is one of the top emerging markets in the country for life sciences and is anchored by the University of Texas, with over 50 research units dedicated to the life sciences and a strong pipeline for those entering the life science field.
But the consortium management firm working with the three Texas cities has proposed Dallas as the site for Hub No. 2, focusing on the customer experience program. Dallas was recognized by commercial real estate giant CBRE as an emerging life science market, and has a growing presence in the life science talent pipeline. UT Southwestern, TCU’s medical school, and the University of North Texas Health Science Center partner well with other local universities to build a talent pipeline. Pegasus Park has also established itself as a regional hub for life science and biotech innovation, with the country’s first BioLabs location and several other organizations in the industry taking up residence there over the past few years. The CMF has proposed Pegasus Park as the host site for ARPA-H.
Pegasus Park is a 26-acre, 750,000-square-foot campus renovated in 2020, complete with a biotech and life sciences hub, a social impact hub, commercial tenants, and entertainment and dining venues. Just minutes from two international airports, downtown, and Dallas’ Southwestern Medical District, it is an ideal place for a life sciences agency.
The hub’s goal is to enhance clinical trials and reach representative populations. According to the CMF, Pegasus Park has enough space, an ideal location with convenient access to transportation, equipment, a network of talent, and political support to accommodate the hub’s needs. In essence, the hub should be at Pegasus Park for the same reasons BioLabs, Health Wildcatters, UTSW, and several other companies in the biomedical space have chosen to call the development home.
Biotech innovation is already well underway at Pegasus Park. BioLabs is the key operator of the development’s 37,000 square-foot co-working laboratory and office facility for life science startups and has a flexible lab, training, and office space, six private labs, 90 open benches, workstations, lab space, conference rooms, tissue culture suites, a microbiology suite, and other standard lab equipment. The demand is more significant than expected; BioLabs is well ahead of schedule in filling up its space.
“Dallas is home to top-tier universities, corporate partners and investors, and premier healthcare systems with one of the best academic medical centers in the country for commercializing new biomedical technologies and providing exceptional care to patients,” says Tom Luce, CEO of Biotech Initiatives at Lyda Hill Philanthropies. “The city’s ability to attract scientists, entrepreneurs, and investment funds is hard to beat. Paired with Dallas’ emergence as a key hub for biotech and life sciences in the country and Pegasus Park’s ability to offer existing flexible space and a convenient location to the city’s medical district and two airports, including the second largest international airport in the world, Dallas and the North Texas region add significant value towards Texas as an ARPA-H site location.”
Reports show that there will be stiff competition for the headquarters, with Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania all making their case as well. ARPA-H will make a decision about its hub locations this fall.
Author
Will Maddox
Will is the senior editor for D CEO magazine and the editor of D CEO Healthcare. He’s written about healthcare…
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- Source: https://www.dmagazine.com/healthcare-business/2023/06/what-is-arpa-h-and-why-does-texas-want-it-in-dallas/
