Biotech campus at McMaster Innovation Park billed as job creator, pandemic fighter
Seventeen years ago this month, The Spectator quoted a consultant who predicted it would take decades for Hamilton to develop a bioscience technology sector, due to a lack of available land, and because companies weren't knocking down the city's door to be anchor tenants."
But news out of McMaster Innovation Park suggests it's anchors aweigh for biotech in the city, with a new star tenant coming to the 14-year-old technology and research hub off Longwood Road.
CCRM, a not-for-profit organization that develops regenerative medicine and cell and gene therapies, is partnering with MIP to build a biomanufacturing campus."
Ground will break on the project sometime next year in a brownfield site at the corner of Aberdeen Avenue and Longwood where a Westinghouse plant facility once stood.
Michael Israels, CCRM's chief financial officer, says the campus will be the first of its kind in the world, creating hundreds of jobs in Hamilton, and also will develop medicines that will strengthen Canada's ability to combat future pandemics.
MIP CEO Ty Shattuck said the initial building - called a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) - will be 100,000 square feet, leading to construction employment but also ultimately 300 to 500 permanent jobs.
Israels cautioned that it is still early days in the partnership; a news release from CCRM highlighted that a letter of intent" between the parties to go forward with the vision has been signed.
MIP needs to secure funding from private sources, and CCRM from federal and provincial levels of government. The total development is projected to cost upwards of $250 million.
But Israels spoke to The Spectator about his excitement over the biotech campus initiative that he believes will foster a new economic ecosystem" in the life sciences industry in Canada.
He likened it to the auto industry, in terms of building biotech webs of supply chains, and attracting foreign investment that could lead to thousands of jobs, in addition to health care breakthroughs.
We are building a unique nexus here between Hamilton and Toronto and the GTA, focused around life sciences and biotech, that could compete with the likes of Boston and San Francisco," he said. Also, COVID-19 has shone a light on the importance of biotech, for countries to have domestic capacity and to be able to pivot in times of crisis."
Shattuck said the idea is for the campus at MIP to become a catalyst in advancing the Canadian biotech industry beyond mere startups, to creating a graduation space" for companies to grow into top-tier manufacturing juggernauts.
There are about 100 companies currently located at the park. Shattuck said by 2022 tenants are expected to start populating the old Hamilton Spectator building on Frid Street acquired last spring.
Other future tenants at MIP will include McMaster University's Global Nexus for Pandemic and Biological Threats," in a development called the Glass Warehouse, located in a massive former Westinghouse factory at 606 Aberdeen Ave.
He said CCRM represents a big meaningful chunk" of the park's future, as MIP grows 2.1 million square feet in size over the next five to 10 years (for a total of 2.8 million square feet), representing $1.1 billion in new development.
The next steps are building roads, infrastructure and power systems to support it all."
Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com