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The federal government has selected Kendall Square in Cambridge as a new center for investment in health care and biomedical studies as a component of a national program unveiled by President Joe Biden last year.
The center is one of three centers announced in the United States as part of the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Its aim is to “capture” biomedical inventions in the region and provide them with money and advice, according to Iram Farooq, the city’s deputy director of network development.
According to a press release, the Investor Catalyst Hub will bring projects to market, which requires commercial, regulatory, and logistical expertise.
Gov. Maura T. Healey in 1992 called the placement “a victory for Massachusetts” in the press release.
The ARPA-H initiative will address what “traditional studies or advertising activity” would not normally do, according to the National Institutes of Health’s website.
Mark A. Marino, assigned director of the new center and vice president of a local fitness nonprofit, said the efforts of the public and sectors have grown the state’s life sciences industry.
“It took 10, 20, 50 years,” Marino said, calling Greater Boston “the life sciences and biotechnology capital of the world. “
“Like Hollywood or Silicon Valley, this kind of approach to biotechnology has been intentional, it’s not an accident,” he said.
Since the 1970s, Kendall Square in Cambridge has been home to biotech companies, from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to fledgling startups. Across the river, Boston’s Longwood Medical Area, home to Harvard Medical School, the School of Public Health, and the School of Dentistry. It is itself a fashionable center for research on hospitals and physical care.
Other parts of the greater Boston area, Allston adds, are emerging as new biotech hubs, with mixed emotions of engaged citizens as the growing presence of labs invades well-cherished community institutions.
In February, the Allston Museum of Sound closed after biotech real estate investor IQHQ bought its building in 2021 for $50 million. Great Scott, a popular music club, closed in 2020 when a new lab opened in the neighborhood.
Another thing that differentiated Boston’s domain from other states vying for the center was the fact that corporations in the domain sought partnerships with local organizations and residents.
“What they gave us was how to make the life sciences a truth in people’s lives,” said the Rev. Willie Bodrick II, a pastor from Boston’s Roxbury community who participated in the state’s presentation to federal officials.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, he says, the life sciences sector has experienced closer relationships with the local people around it.
“The region has shifted to a much more collaborative style and has found that we are more powerful when we work together because we all have other competitive benefits that we offer,” Farooq said.
In May, federal officials came to Boston to hear local leaders present their state as the best location for the Investor Catalyst Hub.
They pointed to the case study of Chelsea, a small city north of Boston with a population made up of 50 percent immigrants and two-thirds Hispanic. The city has faced high rates of the Covid pandemic.
City leaders, startups and nonprofits from all sectors collaborated to solve the problem, “and things the other way around,” Marino said.
Chelsea has “one of the gold stars in pandemic preparedness and responsiveness,” Marino said, opening the door to similar interventions for older fitness situations, such as diabetes or substance use disorders.
In the Bodrick neighborhood, Boston Medical Center has partnered with Church leaders to vaccinate thousands of citizens in a pandemic hit.
While Bodrick praised the merits of the center and the life sciences sector in general, he warned that Massachusetts would not retain its merits if it failed in its inclusive industry.
Bodrick cautioned that life sciences “have traditionally been a varied industry. “If Massachusetts loses its ability to collaborate with local organizations, “we lose our status,” said Bodrick, a Harvard Divinity School alumnus.
“There are other cities that have prospects of becoming world leaders,” he said.
Marino, the center’s director of assignments, said he has a “commitment to location-based recruiting” within his office.
“There’s no explanation as to why we have billion-dollar entities in the Commonwealth and they don’t reflect the diversity of the Commonwealth,” Bodrick said.
—Editor Jack R. Trapanick can be reached at jack. trapanick@thecrimson. com. Follow him on Twitter @jackrtrapanick.
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