The Flinn Foundation hosted its annual online event April 19 to provide an update on the progress of Arizona’s bioscience ecosystem.
The webinar featured remarks from Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a conversation between mayors Kate Gallego of Phoenix, Regina Romero of Tucson, and David Ortega of Scottsdale, and a presentation by David Spetzler, Ph.D., president of Caris Life Sciences. The speakers highlighted bioscience successes in Arizona and their visions on how to grow the sector, develop talent, increase physician residency slots, support STEM education, and continue their collaboration.
As part of the update, the Flinn Foundation released its current progress report highlighting the major bioscience developments and accomplishments across the state in 2022, plus one new performance measure. Arizona set another record in National Institutes of Health funding, the gold standard measure of bioscience research, in 2022. The $344 million figure represents a 12.5% increase over 2021, the previous record amount.
The update includes a PDF version of the progress report which features a message about what lies ahead for the ecosystem as new investments in fields like semiconductors supercharge Arizona—and the biosciences.
Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap, which is entering its third decade as the state’s long-term strategic plan, has guided the growth and progress of the biosciences since 2002. The Roadmap was updated in 2014 with the goal of Arizona becoming globally competitive and a national leader in select areas of the biosciences by 2025.
Since 2003, the Flinn Foundation has held annual events to report on the growth and progress of Arizona’s bioscience sector. The Flinn Foundation commissions TEConomy Partners to track progress and report on the state’s bioscience performance measures on a biennial basis. The next report is scheduled for April 2024.