Roanoke City’s Director of Economic Development calls the five year journey from visioning to securing the funds and then remodeling what is now the RoVa Labs building a “labor of love.” Marc Nelson is Director of Economic Development for the City of Roanoke, which has announced a memorandum of understanding with Carilion Clinic on establishing a biotech incubator in a building Carilion still owns, and will manage for at least ten years. Its the latest addition to the biotech ecosystem in downtown Roanoke. They will cut the ribbon on May 6.
The city, Carilion, Virginia Tech, Virginia Western Community College and the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance – which runs the RAMP high tech business accelerator just up the block on South Jefferson – are all partners in RoVa Labs, which will lease space to researchers who need a wet or dry lab space for a short period of time to tweak their idea or invention. The biotech collaboration says Roanoke City, “reinforces the bridges that connect higher education, health services – and industry.” WFIR’s Gene Marrano reports:
The post RoVa Labs is “the next step” in the valley’s biotech ecosystem first appeared on News/Talk 960-AM & FM-107.3 WFIR.
