Startups flock to be part of Rochester's industry cluster.

Byline: William Morris

How much is it worth for a bioscience company like Newport, Connecticut-based BioSig Technologies to set up shop in the shadow of an industry giant such as Mayo Clinic?

"More than you can imagine," CEO Ken Londoner said in an interview.

BioSig makes technology that helps heart surgeons gather information and make more informed decisions during procedures, and has collaborated with Mayo Clinic to varying degrees since 2014, Londoner said. The company announced plans Tuesday to take that collaboration to the next level as it opens a technology development office in Rochester's Conley Maass Downs Building at 14 Fourth St. SW in Rochester, just blocks from Mayo's downtown campus.

"[Our Mayo office] is really for product development, technology development, clinical validation, all the things we can do with the Mayo Clinic that makes it so good for our company," Londoner said. "We'll be working on new products there and extensions of our existing technology. We also are licensing some of their technology into our portfolio for development."

BioSig is far from the only company to launch or expand recently to take advantage of Mayo's growing presence. Rochester represents the newest and fastest-growing regional gathering of peer companies, a phenomenon known to economists as industry clusters. Whether its food processing companies gravitating to Jenny-O and Hormel in southern Minnesota, or device-makers launching in the Twin Cities' famous Medical Alley, there can be enormous advantages for companies locating near even staunch competitors, said Lee Munnich, a senior fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

"You need to have companies that are there that are in the business that might create opportunities for other companies to grow, or those companies themselves to grow," said Munnich, who took part in the U.S. Cluster Mapping project to create an inventory of regional industry hubs.

The advantages of working in such a cluster can be many: access to an experienced local workforce, improved supply chains and logistics and better opportunities for collaboration, among others. For a company like BioSig, Mayo Clinic is practically Silicon Valley, Londoner said.

"The whole notion of why other companies are heading to Rochester, and we're just an example of this trend, is no different than Google is to Stanford [University] and how Google thrived with all the engineers learning to do engineering at Stanford who then go...