Research Campus Key to City's Health Science Hub Forty years ago, Oklahoma City was hardly a medical center mecca, and the terms "life sciences" and "biotech research" had yet to make their way into the mainstream lexicon of corporate America. But for 40 years, as energy industry news captured the lion's share of the business headlines in the city, a healthcare and research campus was quietly taking shape between downtown Oklahoma City and the capitol complex that by 2005 would rival the medical-education-and-research capabilities of any major city in the country. Dr. Joseph Ferretti is senior vice president and provost at the Univ. of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.       The Oklahoma Health Center is home to numerous public and private healthcare-related enterprises, including the University of Oklahoma (OU) Health Sciences Center and Medical Center, the Oklahoma Blood Institute, the Oklahoma Health Center Foundation, the Presbyterian Health Foundation and the Dean McGee Eye Institute among other facilities. Combined, the center employs more than 12,000 people and has an economic impact on the Oklahoma City area approaching $2 billion. And it could get bigger.       "We have plenty of room to grow," says Dr. Joseph Ferretti, senior vice president and provost of the OU Health Sciences Center. "It is truly a campus for an academic health center, and there are very few like it in the country." OU's medical school, located on the campus, is one of only four institutions in the country with seven health-related professional schools, says Ferretti.       Research Park Seeks to Fast-Track Time to MarketAmong the newer additions to the campus is the Presbyter-ian Health Foundation Research Park (www.phfresearchpark .com), where biotech and biopharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers and genetics companies, a biotech law firm, private laboratories, state offices and others are tenants. One of the tenants is a genetics company that can detect from a person's DNA — in minutes — his or her susceptibility to several specific kinds of cancer. The commercialization potential of that technology is substantial.       "The success of the park is due to the foundation's aggressive investment policy," says Dr. Michael Anderson, president of the Presbyterian Health Foundation, the mission of which is to support medical research in Oklahoma. A secondary mission is what Anderson calls translational research, "so that we get the molecules out of the lab and into the marketplace."       Commercializing a pharmaceutical product in the United States typically takes seven years and $600 million, says Anderson. "We are aiming for our companies here to make that happen in four to five years and in the neighborhood of under $100 million. We think we can launch several of these for $60 million or $70 million. Big pharma does this in a very different way, but these smaller companies will get through the trials with a lot less money."       And if they are successful in doing so in Oklahoma City, word will spread rapidly in life science circles. It's a good thing the research park has room to expand.       For more information, visit www.OKcommerce.gov/bio.

     

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