Global Life Sciences Cluster Report 2011 - Jones Lang LaSalle

Chicago
three-building, 630,000-square-foot world headquarters on
70 acres purchased from Baxter. Astellas has announced
plans to follow suit and will deliver its new 445,000-square
foot headquarters in 2012. Sysmex also executed two recent
deals for its world headquarters, opting to lease 160,000 square
feet of office and 146,000 square feet of industrial space in
Lincolnshire. Further fueling activity was the September 2011
memorandum for collaboration between the Illinois Science
and Technology Coalition, iBio and China’s Shanghai Bio
Pharmaceuticals Association.
Also underway, the Illinois Science + Technology Park in Skokie
will be a 23-acre campus providing laboratory, office and
conference space for life science-focused companies. Currently
under construction by Forest City’s Science + Technology Group,
the site will eventually offer up to two million square feet of
advanced facilities (660,000 square feet are immediately available).
Industry framework
Intellectual capacity
The area benefits from a large hospital system and life
sciences-related employment of nearly 530,000 individuals,
most of whom work in hospital or medical-related professions.
The metropolitan area is home to several leading universities
and institutions. These include Northwestern University, the
University of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and
the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The area also attracts
graduates from other schools in the state, such as the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Southern Illinois University
School of Medicine.
Innovation capital
The area’s universities are among the factors that identify
Chicago as a life sciences cluster. Research is a heavy point
48 Americas | Jones Lang LaSalle
of emphasis at area centers like the International Institute of
Nanotechnology at Northwestern, the Center for Pharmaceutical
Biotechnology at the University of Chicago and the Medical
Imaging Research Center at IIT.
The Illinois Medical District was created in 1941. Since then
the area has become rich with hospitals, medical centers and
research facilities including the biotech incubator, Chicago
Technology Park. The 56-acre park features a 56,000-squarefoot
research center for emerging ventures and roughly 118,000
square feet of graduate and other facilities to accommodate
more established companies.
Fiscal & political resources
Founded in 2000, the Illinois Biotechnology Industry Organization,
or iBIO, facilitates relations between public, private and
academic sectors and advocates for favorable public policy
for the industry. Its PROPEL program, launched in 2007, is
specifically focused on increasing the number of life sciences
start-ups in Illinois by providing entrepreneurs with access to
funding, coaching and technical expertise.
Additionally, in 2010, efforts led by iBIO resulted in the state
passage of the Angel Investment Tax Credit program. The
measure grants investment tax credits to early-stage VC or
Angel investors, capped at $10 million.
Outlook
Headquartered in the Chicago area are large life
sciences companies including Abbott Laboratories,
Astellas, Baxter, Hospira, Takeda, and Walgreens
Although the State of Illinois is home to some of the top research
universities and institutions in the United States, the area
struggles to translate its innovation into start-ups, and further,
to retain them in the state. Historically, the Chicago region has
been challenged by the loss of its research graduates to coastal
cities but has reversed this trend slightly during the past 36–48
months; more programming, expertise and fiscal attention will
help the area overcome this hurdle and move the Chicago area
into an established cluster.
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