Kansas City has already has a reputation for barbecue, sports, jazz. Now it’s angling to be a biotech hub for vaccine production, and the feds see potential.
The U.S. Department of Commerce received nearly 200 applications from across the nation for inaugural Tech Hub designation, and more than 400 applications for related grants. The KC BioHub application was among just 31 selected.
The KC BioHub consortium stretches across a large swath of eastern Kansas and western Missouri from Manhattan to Columbia.
The application was submitted by BioNexus KC, a decades-old local non-profit focused on collaboration in animal and human health. Their selling points involved existing vaccine manufacturing facilities and research institutions, including those at UMKC, K-State, KU, Mizzou and various research hospitals.
“This is really a recognition of our region’s excellence in the life sciences, and our willingness to collaborate to compete on both a national and a global scale,” said Dennis Ridenour, BioNexus KC’s president and CEO.
Research isn’t the only thing already underway. Production in the biotech field is also growing in the region.
