Indiana Biosciences CEO Has Aggressive Growth Plan, Looks to Hire Hundreds
May 21, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
INDIANAPOLIS – David Broecker, the new chief executive officer of Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, has big plans for the company, including the creation of a $350 million endowment and the hiring of a staff of about 200, the Indianapolis Star reported reported this morning.
Broecker, a former Eli Lilly and Company executive, took over the top spot at IBRI earlier this week, said he also wants to find a permanent home for the institute, which currently is leasing space at a building owned by Indiana University.
Launched in 2013, the nonprofit organization serves as the catalyst to advancing the state's life sciences strengths. State officials and biotech leaders in Indiana hope the institute will help attract “world-class scientific leaders” and research dollars to bolster the state’s bioscience industries. Additionally, the institute has a goal to “accelerate collaboration across and among Indiana's substantial academic and commercial research assets while focusing on human health solutions for improving the lives of Hoosiers and people around the world.”
Broecker told the Star his goal is to expand the institute’s staff over the next 10 years and develop and begin to raise funds for the planned endowment. He said he would begin working on the first phases of the goal this summer. Additionally, Broecker told the Star he wants to find a permanent home for the institute, somewhere close to its current facility. He said he was interested in securing or building a permanent office and lab facility of about 90,000 total square feet.
When the institute was formed in 2013, Eli Lilly’s Senior Vice President Bart Peterson said the new organization will “change the bio-landscape of our region. Indiana's life sciences companies spend billions of dollars in research and development each year to advance health care innovations for improved human health. The Institute will help us nurture our partnerships across the country and develop more intellectual capital here in Indiana -- allowing us to keep more research dollars in the state, attract more federal research funds, and draw top scientific minds to feed our research pipeline and local economies.”
There are approximately 1,700 life sciences companies in Indiana, including biopharmaceutical companies, agricultural science companies, device and diagnostic companies. According to BioCrossroads, which also works to connect life sciences partnerships in Indiana, the life sciences industry had an economic impact of $59 billion on Indiana in 2013. Indiana has workforce of more than 56,000 in life sciences industries in 2013, an increase of over 1,000 from the previous year, with an average salary of more than $90,000, BioCrossroads noted. Over the past few years Indiana companies filed 682 patents for life sciences-related innovations, and 99 new products were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Indiana universities submitted 983 patent filings, BioCrossroads reported.
The institute is funded through a combination of public and private funds. In 2013 the institute announced it had reached its first $50 million funding milestone, which included $25 million in state funds and $25 million from corporate and philanthropic funders.
The Institute was developed by industry leaders from Eli Lilly and Company, Dow AgroSciences , Roche Diagnostics Corporation , Cook Medical, Indiana University Health, Biomet Inc., BioCrossroads, the state of Indiana and state research institutions, including Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame.
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