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USF Research Park Attracts LifeLink

Posted on: Friday, 14 April 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Carol Gentry, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Apr. 14--TAMPA -- The University of South Florida, in its drive to recruit biotech companies for USF Research Park, has landed a big one: the LifeLink Tissue Bank.

The tissue bank is part of the Tampa-based nonprofit LifeLink Foundation, best known for arranging organ transplants. The tissue division creates grafts from donor bone, tendons and other connective tissues.

The new facility will increase the dedicated research space at the park by about 25 percent and add about 200 employees to the 300 already there, said Rod Casto, USF associate vice president for research.

The operation "fits right into our focus on devices, diagnostics and therapies," Casto said.

One of the largest tissue processors in the country, LifeLink has partnerships with a number of cell-research and bioengineering companies and does its own research, as well. That effort could get a boost from proximity to USF's health and engineering schools.

"I think it's going to be a real think-tank opportunity," said Dennis Heinrichs, president and chief operating officer for the LifeLink Foundation.

USF's relationship with LifeLink stretches to before the transplant organization became a foundation in 1982. LifeLink's physicians and transplant surgeons work with the USF College of Medicine and its major teaching hospital, Tampa General.

The partnership with LifeLink allows USF researchers to study human tissue and organs they wouldn't otherwise have access to, said Abdul Rao, senior associate vice president for research at USF Health.

"They will be doing clinical research and we will be learning from their experiences," Rao said. "This is a true partnership."

Aside from the tissue processing and research centers, LifeLink/USF will house employees from the foundation's offices of communications, information technology and finance. The foundation's medical offices, organ procurement and transplant support team, immunology laboratory and fund raising will remain downtown at 409 Bayshore Blvd.

For the new USF LifeLink facility, the foundation has asked architects to submit designs for 105,000 square feet with a budget of about $12 million, Heinrichs said. The facility should be ready 18 to 24 months from now, he said.

LifeLink says it has talked with SunTrust Bank about obtaining bond financing through the city of Tampa. The foundation used that arrangement to build its headquarters.

The Tissue Bank has long outgrown its space at 8510 Sunstate St. and leases space at a nearby office park. Evolution of technology made continued retrofits impractical.

Among the tissue division's major corporate partners are Biomet Inc. of Warsaw, Ind., a leading producer of artificial joints, and LifeCell Corp. of Branchburg, N.J., which makes wound-healing products out of human tissue.

Reporter Adam Emerson contributed to this report.

TISSUE BANK:

--110 employees

--Established: 1985

--$16.5 million in revenue

--Division of LifeLink Foundation

--Foundation total revenue: $65.8 million

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Copyright (c) 2006, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

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BMET, LIFC,

Source: Tampa Tribune

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