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Central MA Life Sciences Report 17 a resource and can help incubators problem-solve. And with programs like the Medical Device Development Center, entrepreneurs and scientists can walk a hallway or to another building to ask for advice or work through problems with frontline workers. The reason this is all important is because big pharmaceutical companies are continuing to spend billions of dollars on research and development, but the things they're working on are harder to nail down. That means they need to look outside of their own structure for answers. Medicine and the technology to administer it has become more complex thanks to the research coming out of Cambridge, but that means it's more expensive to invest in and a lot harder to see clear paths. So, pharma companies need more thinkers coming up with solutions. Parth Chakrabarti, executive vice chancellor for innovation and business development at UMass Chan, said places like UMass, MBI, ABI-LAB, and the universities in Central Massachusetts like Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which is spinning off its own companies and renting out lab space to startups and researchers, will be the bridge for those pharma companies. "Institutions are the magnets," Chakrabarti said. The magnets will eventually bring money with them because venture capital is built around finding good science and scientists with the right platform and infrastructure to build around. "The research institutions are the lifeblood of VC and startup science," Chakrabarti said. "Dollars are an ingredient to make science. Both are needed, but the money will follow innovation." Between 2018 and 2023, companies in Central Massachusetts have attracted more than $833 million in venture capital funding to bring their ideas to fruition, according to Crunchbase. This includes a $150-million investment in 2018 to Littleton proton therapy company Mevion Medical Systems and a $75-million investment in 2022 to Marlborough genetic medicine developer Solid Biosciences. All that is on top of the hundreds of millions in National Institutes of Health grant funding that Central Massachusetts organizations – led by UMass Chan and WPI – receive each year. In fiscal 2022, NIH funding exceeded $223 million in the region. Chakrabarti sees Kendall Square and Cambridge expanding in a way that can't hold all of the investors and industry leaders."Kendall Square is bursting at the seams," Chakrabarti said. So, there is a void Central Massachusetts can fill. Now, it's about finding the rest of the ingredients to make the mix work. The talent is here, but Parth believes more needs to be lured away or nurtured to have the capital follow. To do that, the infrastructure needs to be in place. The Commuter Rail train needs to be more economically viable and less time consuming – a half-hour train ride, Chakrabarti said. Then the technology will come with lab space and more companies moving on from incubation. Eventually, the money will start to filter and see the value in investing in companies with lower overhead costs. What's for certain, is changing the perception of Central Massachusetts to a hotbed of life science research is going to be hard. "The lure of the Cambridge and Boston address is there," Nate Hafer, director of operations for the UMass Chan Center for Clinical and Translational Science and co-director of Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center. "There is a fear of missing out in some magical place. The lure is hard to overcome." But Hafer said the cost of real estate will be a real pull. It's what the region has going for it alongside the solid foundation of research institutions. The talent is or has moved to Central Massachusetts. Now it's about bringing the money along with it and seeing the project for what it is: long-term. "If we're in a 50-year timeline, we are in year five, and that is good," Chakrabarti said. "There is a long way ahead, and it's exciting. That means we have 45 years of growth ahead of us." Parth Chakrabarti, executive vice chancellor at UMass Chan, believes biotech research has only begun in its lifecycle in Central Mass. and still has years ahead of it. P H O T O / M A T T W R I G H T LS