Hartford Business Journal

16 Hartford Business Journal • April 4, 2016 www.HartfordBusiness.com With a phone call, CT keeps a Yale spinoff home By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com M olecular scientist Craig M. Crews, a Yale professor and successful bio- entrepreneur, was in the midst of a fateful decision several years back, involv- ing his latest bioscience venture, when a state official's phone call dramatically altered the course for him and his young company, Arvinas Inc. His second bioscience startup, one that devised a "platform technology'' now undergoing clinical trials and from which a number of more effective cancer treatments could eventually flow, Arvinas was being heavily courted by neighboring Massachu- setts to relocate its research and operations staff to Cambridge – home to one of Ameri- ca's most lucrative bioscience clusters. Like Yale in New Haven, a number of major universities are clustered in and around Cambridge, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, essential gateways to talent and ideas that Crews and other bio-entrepreneurs say are their industry's lifeblood. Then came the phone call that enabled Connecticut to avoid losing a second Crews bioscience startup to another state. What ensued, observers say, not only underscores the extent of Connecticut's com - mitment to its bioscience build- up, but also illustrates how the state has been able to leverage its investment of capital and incentives into a much more lucrative bioscience pot. On the other end of the line was Catherine Smith, commis- sioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development. Word of Cam- bridge's pitch to Arvinas filtered to Smith, who was eager to keep the company in Connecticut. "She called and said, 'I hear you have an offer in Cambridge. What can we do to make this work for you'?" Crews recalled Smith asking. "That phone call from Catherine real- ly set a lot of things in motion.'' "Craig Crews is kind of iconic, so it made sense to call him personally,'' Smith said, confirming Crews' recollection. Uninterested in commuting long-distance again after a year of coast-to-coast travel with his previous bioventure based in California, Crews laid out to Smith his terms for keeping Arvi- nas in his native Connecticut. The result, according to Crews, who is Arvinas' chief science offi- cer, CEO Dr. Manuel Litchman, and finance chief Sean Cassidy: A forgivable $2.5 million DECD loan in exchange for its commitment to create at least 25 jobs and to remain in Connecticut at least through 2023. It has 35 workers so far. Arvinas in early 2015 obtained the last loan tranche, for which DECD recently notified the company that portion, too, has been forgiven, Cassidy said. Separately, Connecticut Innovations Inc. (CI), the state's quasi-public technology promot- er-financier, participated in Arvinas' series A and B equity-investor financing of $2.3 million, plus CI issued a $750,000 loan to equip its office- laboratory in the Science Park at Yale develop- ment, in New Haven's Newhallville section. Within a month, in July 2013, Arvinas and a handful of staff moved into 9,500 square feet on the third floor of 5 Science Park, space once a lab for a previous bioscience startup. Arvinas has since added another 5,000 square feet or so on the second floor. "The quickness with which we were able to get this lab up and running is still aston- ishing,'' Crews said. Low-cost haven Connecticut will need more coordinated efforts like these to achieve its bioscience goals, experts say. Paul R. Pescatello, executive director of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association's Catherine Smith, commissioner, state Department of Economic and Community Development Researchers (top left and right) toil at Jackson Laboratory's state-of-the-art office-lab in Farmington (bottom, top photos), which bristles with the latest use of interior space-design that can be reconfigured any number of ways to maximize effective use of the space. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (inset above) and UConn trustees' board chair Larry McHugh celebrate a Bioscience CT milestone in Oct. 2012. P H O T O | C O N T R I B U T E D P H O T O | P A B L O R O B L E S P H O T O | C O N T R I B U T E D P H O T O | C O N T R I B U T E D P H O T O | P A B L O R O B L E S P H O T O | P A B L O R O B L E S

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