Utah Startups and the Innovation Ecosystem.

• Author: Somers, Brian

Utah is home to a booming life sciences industry that features a full spectrum of companies, ranging from homegrown international leaders--such as ARUP Laboratories, BioFire Diagnostics, Merit Medical, and Myriad Genetics--to startup companies still in the early innovation stage.

Utah provides fertile ground for native ideas and research to blossom into strong companies. However, even with many notable successes, Utah life sciences entrepreneurs must navigate a highly technical, capital intensive, competitive, and tightly regulated industry.

"The commercialization of life sciences and biotech innovations is a challenge, and founders of these companies need to be fearless," said June Chen, M.D., partner at Church & State, a non-profit business incubator. "They also need funding, mentorship, incubation facilities, and opportunities to engage with investors."

To offset these challenges, Utah must maintain a strong innovation ecosystem. From basic research at Utah's universities, to university technology transfer offices, to state-supported tech commercialization programs like those of the Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative (USTAR), and the Technology Commercialization and Innovation Program (TCIP) at the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED), to Small Business Development Centers and Business Resource Centers, to private and nonprofit incubators and business acceleration programs--each of these essential ecosystem components are needed to support Utah's life sciences innovators.

Together, these resources provide a platform for entrepreneurs to advance their technology development and commercialization, to build and scale their businesses, form industry partnerships, and connect to capital.

Market data show that access to risk capital for entrepreneurs in the "deep technology" space--that is, tech sectors outside of IT software like life sciences, aerospace, cleantech--is very scarce for companies in the seed stage. Over the last five years, less than 10% of private seed capital has been invested in deep tech companies.

"As scientific research moves toward product development, access to federal funding becomes scarce. However, most technologies are still too risky to attract risk capital and move into the so-called "Valley of Death,'" said Barbara Araneo, Ph.D., USTAR's emerging technologies lead. "Publicly-funded programs help these early stage companies survive by providing competitive grants, technical expertise...