Memphis Biotech—The Art of Collaboration

“Innovation is the purposeful search for changes, and the opportunities that such changes might offer. The Entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.”
Peter Drucker

Raines-Cox Research Institute provides a service essential to the biotechnology industry, specifically the drug discovery process, and, thereby, is taking its place at the table of key influencers of the biotech initiative in Memphis. The Institute’s three-pronged approach has positioned it to affect local medical initiatives from several angles. The Institute provides a much-needed infrastructure for clinical research endeavors making it an ancillary, but vital, component of the biotechnology environment. It is the facilitator and coordinator of behavioral research projects that encourage the participation of both the patient and community in the development of communication and disease awareness strategies. RCRI is also a biotech collaborator and supporter, both from the literal and figurative stance.

There are 1400 biotechnology firms in the U.S., employing a total of about 153,000 people, according to the use of the SIC categories. (This does not include pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations, and equipment manufacturers.)  Biotech-related employment in diversified corporations, academia, the government and other ancillary industries is estimated to add another 300,000 people.  Between 1993 and 1999, the industry doubled in size. Biotechnology and life sciences are significant contributors to the economy of approximately 28 U.S. states and regions, states the Ernst & Young’s May 2000 report. 

According to Dr. Cinda-Herndon King, the first wave of biotechnology, which began when Genetech produced the first commercialized recombinant protein and ended with the sequencing of the human genome, has produced a young biotechnology industry generally centered on leading spires of biomedical research and innovation. The second wave of biotechnology innovation, linked with economic growth, has commenced and with that initiation has come a realization by academia, industry, and community stakeholders as to the magnitude of the opportunity presented in the industry.

Network models are the most recent trend in the industry. Richard Seline, an expert in regional development believes that the recent trend in network models has encouraged collaboration among regions where specific operations, administrative, regulatory and marketing, are done within a region while research, testing and manufacturing is done in various sites throughout the country.

Raines-Cox instituted a ‘network modeling’ approach in 2000, when in an effort to meet its workforce development and industry infiltration needs, the Institute began the first of its interactive relationships with the Boston Biomedical environment. Mutually beneficial relationships between RCRI and the Boston biomedical market have ensured the delivery of quality services through the establishment of workforce development programs designed to enhance the skill level available in the local community.

RCRI has contributed to multiple educational forums for medical professionals seeking greater knowledge of business components essential for the success of new biomedical ventures and facilitated consensus-building efforts between U.S. and international team members in the biotechnology arena. The culmination of these efforts is evidenced by continually evolving interest in RCRI from industry leaders and elected officials as well as a recent request from Governor Sundquist to design and execute a Shelby County health improvement study.  

This is such an exciting time for Memphis as we watch the emergence of the biotech industry. We are truly witnessing something great as the infrastructure and partnerships are developed to build this industry in Memphis. It has been fascinating to watch a well-balanced team form without conscious effort. Without direction or definition each player has gravitated towards, and has become the representative of, the issues that utilize their natural strengths.

Accomplishing this will require the strength of many, rather than the vision of few and that is the essence of collaboration.

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