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Life sciences decoded

Marnie Lavigne can’t work medical wonders, but she can get wonderful medical work into the world

Business First - by Michael Petro
February 18, 2011

Marnie Lavigne can’t cure cancer.

But she works with people who perhaps someday will be able to do it.

“When I talk to my colleagues,” LaVigne says, “I say to them, ‘You can cure cancer and I can’t, but I can help get that drug, that miracle, out to the public.’ ”

As director of business development at the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, that’s LaVigne’s job – to help market cutting-edge medical research.

“What excites me is that I can play a different but still an important role from what the researchers play,” she said. “I appreciate that when you’re in the research role you can make some wonderful things happen, but if you can’t bring that out to the public, they sit in the lab and don’t really help anyone.”
We talked with LaVigne to get an overview of the life sciences work happening in Western New York. Here’s an edited version of that conversation.

What are life sciences and how do they relate to your work?

LaVigne: Life Sciences is the use of technology to improve health in the general population. That could be use of informational technology like bioinformatics and it can get into the world of biomedical informatics. It is the broader use of information technology. It also encompasses therapeutics and drug development, medical devices, diagnostics and another category that Buffalonians may not be as familiar with: research and development of products and services.

Is there a difference between life sciences and health care?

LaVigne: I like to differentiate life sciences from health care by saying that life sciences create the products and services that are used in health care. Your doctor may prescribe a drug or diagnostic for you as a patient, and life sciences is actually the industry that creates those products and services. It’s a crossover but an overlap that is smaller than a lot of people realize. Obviously, the two go hand-in-hand really nicely. So, for Buffalo, we’re really fortunate to have both as robust sectors.

What is it that you do as director of business development?

LaVigne: I like to focus on two aspects: translational research, as well as the business that is developed as a result of that research. Those businesses take the products and services and turn them into something used in health care and the marketplace. I tend to think about that research reaching people and helping them live healthier lives. Besides having some significant research going on here, there also needs to be business development and technology commercialization.

What is it that the medical center offers?

LaVigne: We’re working with companies in the region and attracting companies to the region. The research-and-development assets here are so rich that most companies can’t even imagine having all of them in their backyard. The thought of coming here to work with us and accessing those at little or no cost is a dream come true. For the future, this has staying power in transforming business but also retraining people for these jobs. We’re creating a new mind-set in this community.

How is the region affected by your work?

LaVigne: My goal is to make this understandable to everyone in town. It’s a very promising sector. We’ve seen over 5,000 new and retained jobs since this became a focus in 2001 (when the High Street Project began creating the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus) for our community. It’s very promising. We have over 6,000 private-sector employees; and on the University at Buffalo side, there’s 1,000 more. So the job opportunities are promising.

Is Buffalo really a huge player in life sciences?

LaVigne: It’s not known at the level it should be understood. That’s part of our job – trying to make those connections so that people understand that Buffalo has played a big part and will continue to do so. A big part of my job in business development is turning a great deal of research going on here into private-sector activity so we’re not just handing off our inventions. Really, there’s an incredible synergy when you can put the right pieces together.

Is your funding being affected by today’s economy?

LaVigne: We’re not immune. What we’re doing is becoming more creative in where those dollars come from. The current funding that we have is a blend of private and public sources. New York is investing in research and innovation on the front end, but that downstream end and how you put it through the pipeline and into the marketplace is where (the state) has not invested. Our funding is fairly even, and we’re fortunate to maintain our funding from last year, but what we’ve also realized is that we need to work with other states where funding is more robust. We received a federal grant to work with a nationally recognized company from Cleveland called JumpStart, which has gone to town with this kind of model. We’re trying to take what we’ve grown here and take it to the next level. In terms of funding, that’s the next frontier. It’s how I take $1 million and literally turn that into $10 (million) to 20 million a year.

What is the potential of these projects?

LaVigne: I love Buffalo. My family is here and this community is ripe to just take off. I want the community to understand the promise here. You have to invest some time and energy but the rewards are just tremendous – It takes a stereotypical village to make this work. All kinds of people are necessary. That’s one of our key messages here. Everybody has a place in life sciences.