IU technology emerges in Indy

IU recently launched a multi-million dollar project to cultivate life science businesses, in an effort to spur Indiana's economic growth and thereby increase future state aids for education.\nThe $10 million project officially began in late June, when the IU Advanced Research and Technology Institute (ARTI) bought a building in downtown Indianapolis with $3.9 million of public and corporate contributions, said ARTI president Mark Long. The facility, named the IU Emerging Technology Center, works like hospitals' incubators nurturing newborns. It will support life science startups including pharmacies, hospitals and medical-device manufacturers, until they become commercially viable.\n"The primary purpose of the project is to stimulate economic development in Indiana through the creation of new companies, which will provide jobs and services," Long said. Newly hatched companies will also bring more taxes for the state, and thus more state subsidies for IU, he said.\nAccording to data from the Indiana Department of Commerce, the life sciences industry is the state's biggest employer providing 13 percent of private-sector jobs.\nARTI will equip the technology center with tools and high-tech gears designed to support life sciences, Long said. The agency will rent spaces at half the market rates for incubated startups, which will gain free access to the apparatus inside. It will also help find venture capitalists, and IU experts for business and science consultations. Further, ARTI is scheduled to offer free, monthly business seminars on management, marketing and manufacturing.