Kansas City’s biotech industry gets boost with $38.1M in federal funding

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City region’s biotech industry learned Monday that a regional consortium earned $38.1 million in federal funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

The funding, part of EDA’s Tech Hubs program, could be part of a much larger $150 million in federal funding.

Monday’s announcement from the EDA and the U.S. Department of Commerce included a tech hub across Kansas/Missouri, a second hub in Missouri, and tech hubs in Virginia, Illinois/Indiana/Wisconsin, Maine, and Idaho/Wyoming.

In addition to biotech funding, the EDA awarded $38 million for critical minerals and materials for advanced energy.

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“Together, we have demonstrated that our region has the talent, infrastructure, partnerships and innovation necessary to onshore the manufacturing of biologics,” KC BioHub President Melissa Roberts Chapman said in a news release Monday, “As a consortium, we have positioned the Kansas City region to lead in the global race to build the next great biotech ecosystem.”

The KC BioHub is a program of BioNexusKC and part of a broader consortium of 115 partners, including MRIGlobal and Kansas Manufacturing Solutions. The KC BioHub stretches from McPherson and Manhattan, Kansas, in the west to Columbia, Missouri, in the east.

The funding will go toward five projects over a four-year span:

• SCALE Center, led by MRI Global, will help to accelerate Food and Drug Administration approval of advanced biomanufacturing process technologies;
• EPIC, led by KC BioHub, creates a full-service hub for domestic drug manufacturing and development;
• BioSupply Crossroads, led by Kansas Manufacturing Systems, helps to bring production of critical materials back to the U.S.;
• BioTalent Catalyst, led by KC BioHub, connects employers, educators and training programs to meet industry needs.

BioNexus KC CEO Dennis Ridenour called the funding a “watershed moment.”

“This achievement adds to a long list of extraordinary accomplishments in the life sciences that are rooted in the Kansas City region,” Ridenour said, comparing it to the founding of Marion Labs, the National Bio-Agro Defense Facility, MRIGlobal and the Stowers Institute. “The commitments and collaboration demonstrated by this group were instrumental in securing this investment and positioning our region for long-term success.”

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