How Arizona Built a Bioscience Economy at State Scale: A Conversation with Mary O'Reilly

Speaker A: Welcome to the Commons Podcast featuring researchers, innovators, artists, entrepreneurs and community builders who are improving the human condition in your own backyard and around the globe. I'm your host, Tom Osho. As we continue our series leading up to the BIO International Convention in San Diego, we're taking a closer look at one of the most interesting and sustained bioscience success stories in the United States. That of Arizona. In recent years, Arizona has attracted national attention for the growth of the Phoenix bioscience corps, the expansion of its research institutions and and the increasing presence of life science companies throughout the state. But focusing solely on Phoenix misses an important part of the story. Arizona's bioscience strategy was never designed to be a single city strategy. Rather, it was conceived of as a statewide effort. And that distinction matters. Around the world, regions are asking how they can compete in an economy increasingly driven by knowledge and innovation and talent. Many focus on building innovation districts, research parks, or startup ecosystems within a single city. Those efforts can be important catalysts, but the most durable innovation economies often succeed because they align assets across an entire region and state. They connect universities, health care systems, workforce initiatives, entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers around a shared vision of the future. For more than two decades, Arizona has pursued exactly that approach through the Arizona bioscience Roadmap. What makes the Roadmap noteworthy is not simply that it exists, but that it has endured over multiple economic cycles. Changes in political leadership, technology shifts and evolving market conditions. Arizona has maintained a long term commitment to to building its bioscience sector. The roadmap has provided a framework for setting priorities, measuring progress and adapting strategy while remaining focused on a larger goal creating a more diversified, competitive, innovative and inclusive economy for the entire state. The results can be seen not only in Phoenix, but across Arizona in in research investments, talent development, startup formation, healthcare innovation and growing connections between institutions that might otherwise have pursued separate paths. Perhaps most importantly, Arizona's experience raises a broader question for leaders everywhere. What does it take to sustain a strategic vision over decades rather than years? At a time when many communities are searching for economic resilience and new engines of growth, Arizona offers an example of how philanthropy, public leadership, higher education, health care institutions and private industry can work together around a shared agenda, uh, that transcends any single organization or administration? Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Mario Riley, Vice President of Bioscience Programs and Research for the Flynn foundation, an organization that has played a central role in advancing and stewarding the Arizona Bioscience Roadmap. We'll discuss the origins of the roadmap how it has evolved over time, the statewide impact it has had, and what lessons Arizona's experience may hold for other regions seeking to build innovation driven economies. I hope you enjoy it. Most states talk about building innovation ecosystems, but ecosystems can be diffuse, especially over large states. What if instead we thought about innovation constellations, intentional nodes of excellence connected across the state, each with distinct strengths, but aligned to a shared strategy? Today we're going to be talking with Mary O'Reilly, Vice President of Bioscience Research Programs from the Flynn foundation, about how Arizona's bioscience roadmap really becomes real across the third largest state geography in the United States. Mary, welcome to the commons.

Speaker B: Thank you very much, Tom.

Speaker A: So before we begin, a little bit, tell me a little bit about your role and what the bioscience research programs at Flynn are all about.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, the Flint foundation is a private foundation, um, so we're privately endowed. And our area is one of our primary areas of focus because our founder was actually a cardiologist, very interested in the innovation space. Uh, so one of our primary goals since 2002 is to focus on, uh, working with the community to build an ecosystem that is actually driven by the bio and life sciences. So Arizona as a state has always a state that has been very focused on agriculture, on mining, um, the real estate, uh, sectors, et cetera. But I think there's a realization because we have some very strong academic assets, academic research assets. There has been a realization over time that we need to leverage those assets a little bit more intentionally. Uh, and actually that group came together in 2002, um, to talk about that and talk about how we could do it. So Flynn has participated in those conversations and we've sort of organized our funding, um, across specific sectors within that space over the last 25 years.

Speaker A: So if I think about that trajectory over the last 25 years, one of the things I think is very impressive is when you began this work in 2002, Phoenix, Arizona were nowhere on anyone's radar. And as a life science destination 10 years ago, you started seeing Phoenix being mentioned in the up and coming life science cities as kind of being measured across the country. And as you look at the assets, particularly in, I guess what I'll call the big three, Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff, there's an abundance of riches in research and clinical that I think are able to drive bioscience forward. One of the advantages is how do you connect them? And I think the roadmap provides that connective tissue, doesn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, absolutely. And I think the Real strength of a roadmap is a roadmap, you know, so it's a really nice, um, tool that people and organizations, we all do roadmaps, build strategies around our roadmaps within organizations. So to be able to do this on a statewide level was really quite spectacular. I'm sure. As you know, it's one of the longest, uh, standing market sector, um, roadmaps in the country. And what it has done over an extended period of time, it has given people a framework in which to operate. So we have a common goal. We want to be in one of the top 10 states for this type of work. And while every organization has its own strategic plan, you know, companies are sort of beholden to their shareholders. But the advantage here is it allows us to come together around common themes, and therefore, we can leverage each other's organizations and we can work together for that common goal, which is we want to be in a state where we have really good jobs coming out of the bioscience and life sciences sector. The reason is it sort of stabilizes an economy. It's an area that tends to grow at a very nice, steady pace. You don't have the ups and downs that you might have actually in semiconductors or in the mining industry, etc. So it allows us to stabilize what's happening across the state from an economic perspective. And then obviously, you know, Arizona has learned the lesson of that when the real estate crash came in 2008, et cetera. So we know we need that if we want to be able to really have good jobs for people, have a healthy economy here, give people opportunities to actually build good lives here.

Speaker A: What's one of the challenges and one of the surprising benefits of, of aligning so many diverse actors across such a large geography?

Speaker B: You're well versed in this, but, you know, as you move people apart, even by feet, the amount of communications that occur between them, you know, exponentially drops off. So here we are, we're in a state. I come from Ireland. I think the surface area of Ireland is Maricopa and Gila County. Okay. We're in a state of much larger than that. So, you know, how do we actually connect people? People who are very, um. Just spread out. Yeah. So it is a real challenge here. Um, and then organizations that have maybe slightly different mandates. So, you know, you have a health system here. We all know that they operate on very tight margins. But so how do we keep our health systems engaged in innovation and developing innovation? So it has to be relevant. I think one of the maybe A key, uh, component of this is finding areas of relevance to all of us and finding ways for us to work together on resolving some of those so that people can mutually see the benefits for their organizations, their locality. And I think that's an important piece of this.

Speaker A: Can you give me a couple of examples, uh, of how you've seen it work really well? Because I know there's a lot of listeners out there probably facing the same challenge. How do you stitch together people at distance?

Speaker B: When you want to build a relationship with somebody, you really need to be sitting talking to them. And I think people are finding that that is the case. And as we came out of COVID there's a definite realization that people need to talk to people. You know, you need to be able to sit there, look, have a laugh with somebody, talk to somebody, get to know them. And you'll never really do that over zoom. However, it's a great tool and it allows us to sort of network. We have meetings today where I wouldn't have had colleagues down in Yuma on the border, but it's a four hour drive. But now we can talk, we build relationships. We might get to see each other once or twice a year. So you sort of use the best of both worlds. And I think that's what's happening in Arizona is people are realizing that we don't always have to be on the road traveling. And I know it's a real bone of contention up in Flagstaff and down in Tucson is Phoenix is, uh, you know, it's the larger metro area. So people have to tend to come to Phoenix and they get tired of having to drive up that road. But we try and make it easy on them, you know, and give them value when they come.

Speaker A: Well, and I was impressed that, that there has been some traveling in those other directions as well. I think you and I may have met each other in 2016 when I spoke at a roadmap event in Flagstaff, Arizona. I think that's the first time we met.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, and actually I will say the teams up in Flagstaff are doing a remarkably good job. They had obviously, um, Covid caused a blip for everybody. They had a bioscience community sort of built before COVID that tended to dissipate over, uh, the last few years. But they're really re energizing and they're developing their own roadmap for the biosciences up in Plagstaff. And I think that's really an interesting piece of it. I was speaking with somebody this morning they're talking about how can they build an angel group up there so people see the value. But Flagstaff has real assets. So that's the realization. This isn't just, we want to do this, but Flagstaff has some really good companies in the space. It has people who have worked in those companies for a number of years. A few of them are retiring out. They're looking for other things to do. Or you have young engineers who are saying, oh, you know, I like working for a big company. I've learned an awful lot, great company, but now it's time for me to go out on my own. So we're seeing a sort of number of startups in the area, and then obviously, you know, people in Phoenix are looking up to Flagstaff. It's important, it's an important partner. And then how can we be supportive mutually, um, on what's happening?

Speaker A: Are we three distinct ecosystems right now, or are we merging into a real constellation?

Speaker B: Um, I would say that we're. We're a constellation purely because every, every area has different strengths. So Flagstaff is. It's based on medical devices, really. If you look at what's happening in the universities, what's happening in the smaller companies, you know, a lot of that is sort of an outpouring of what people skills that people would have learned, maybe at Gore, W.L. gore and others. Um, if you look at what's happening down in Tucson, Tucson has a very long history working in the aerospace and defense. They have one of the best optics departments in the world. Not even in the country, but in the world. So you have to say that again, medical devices, but maybe optically led. Medical devices are strong. That's why you have Roche down there, is because Dr. Grogan had that capacity and sort of built out, uh, a company down there, Ventana, at the time that's looking at sort of, again, using optical technology to now, um, analyze slides for cancer diagnostics. That's an enormous company. Was able to. Ventana was bought over by Roche. It's an international company. So all of those areas of strength have emerged really, in many ways from what was happening both in the universities. But in Flagstaff, it was a little different because it was actually. The founders of Gore actually liked Flagstaff. I mean, from a, uh, lifestyle perspective, a lot of people like Flagstaff. So they came, they built a company, and we're seeing the impact of that.

Speaker A: So what is the value that experienced talent, executive level, particularly brings to the ecosystem and to startups in having them get over that valley of Death. And does Arizona have enough of that talent?

Speaker B: Yes, without a doubt. So. And people would have said, obviously, Arizona is different. I mean, we're a population of 7 million. We're spread across, like, a very large footprint, relatively new. I mean, I think in 1985, the population here. I'll probably get it wrong, but let's say it was 3 million. Today it's 7. But, you know, there's been exponential growth here. Um, and with that. So we're a young state. Uh, we're building new industries. It's going to take time to get the depth, you know, the quantity of depth that we might need. But then on the flip side is, and why I like Arizona, uh, and why I came here, um, originally, which I came for work, I'd never been to Arizona until I stepped off the airplane.

Speaker A: Looks a little different than Ireland, eh?

Speaker B: It's really different. But I will say I love it. But one of the things I really like is people here are very agile. People realize that there are some deficiencies, but people figure out how to navigate those deficiencies. And I think over time, we're getting the type of expertise that we need to build our companies. This is also a great place for people to retire. So there are groups of people who come here. They don't come here necessarily initially to sort of participate in the economy, but then they find that it's interesting things are happening, and we probably need to get better at plugging them in. So if somebody comes to me and says, mary, there's this great person who has a lot of experience, sometimes it can be a little hard. And I think it's probably a challenge that everybody says. And, you know, they say there's lots of jobs out there for people. And they say, we need executives to do X. But sometimes actually, when you're faced with that, we don't have the mechanisms to efficiently connect people. And I would say that that's not just an Arizona problem. That's probably a problem everywhere. And we need to figure out how to do that, because I think that's a. We're losing a lot of opportunity to, um. You know, there are people who want to help and they can't explain. Plug into the system.

Speaker A: A lot of brain power sitting on the sidelines.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I think a, uh, lot.

Speaker A: So the second thing that had struck me was the Roche example. So in many markets, you'll have a large global company acquiring a small one and then pulling that small one away, Right? Taking them home, if you will. The fact that Roche chose to stay I think was a really important signal, wasn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah, very much so. And I think when, if you were to visit the Roche facility in, um, Tucson, I believe it goes now across three locations. They do everything. I believe that they're fully integrated from marketing and sales all the way through to research and manufacturing, which is unusual for them as a company. But when they took it over, they saw that there was the expertise they needed on site and they've just capitalized on having it there. So, I mean, this is a company that has its headquarters in Switzerland. So you go, wow, Tucson's a long way from that, but yet people have shown value and they knew how to integrate their business and they're doing a great job.

Speaker A: I think a similar story. You could apply with City of Hope and TGen, couldn't you?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, and there. Well, there I would say that the really nice thing is we're very so close to California. You know, it's not hard for a company in California to say we're going to have a presence in Arizona. There's lots of reasons to do that. I mean, it's less expensive. We have great assets that can be leveraged. And you're really only a driveway you're five hours from. Yeah. So when the City of Hope brought into or bought over, uh, TGEN or, you know, I was collaborating with TGen, they did it because, again, it had an asset that they didn't have. So it does all of the, uh, genetic profiling, it has a deep, um, research base, and they weren't really assets that, um, City of Hope had. What City of Hope has, though, is it has access to. So when you're doing work in this space, when you need patients for clinical trials, for data, you know, you need a partner, a really strong partner to do that. And City of Hope, obviously is one of those partners.

Speaker A: So as I think about the roadmap. Right. You talked a little bit that Flagstaff is kind of developing their own flavor. The five goals of the current roadmap that I think 25 through 30, uh, roadmap. Are those different in Tucson and Phoenix and Flag? Are they different goals or just different flavors of the same approach?

Speaker B: I would say just a slight variation on flavor, but the approach is exactly the same. And really the goals have remained constant since the early 2002 when they were looking at this first time round. You know, these. So these are like broad, overarching themes. You know, when. When somebody says we want to be in the top 10, that doesn't change. You know, it's just, you know, you might have to revise your plan, you might have to revise your strategy, but the goal is to be there. Yeah. So goals actually, in my view, shouldn't be changing, you know, loosely from time to time. They're constant. And um, we just stay on track.

Speaker A: Who orchestrates this at the scale of Arizona?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, the great thing there is it's a community led strategy. So it certainly wasn't only, uh, a consultancy group sitting on their own, deciding what was needed based on what was happening around us, let's say, in other states. This was the hearing, listening to the collective. You know, very large number of people across our space were interviewed, participated in this come together quarterly, um, to sort of just check in, you know, sometimes. And sometimes people say things. You know, when anything lasts for a long period of time, there's obviously periods of activity and maybe periods of that. But you know, but you have to go with the uh, rise and fall of this. But it's the constant focus that really keeps you on track. And you know, the nice thing in. And I think the special thing within Arizona is an organization like Flynn, who is, has its own funding source, was able to keep this going. But the value of the roadmap here is that it has been cherished, it has been funded by Flynn and Flynn has resources from a personnel perspective. You know, we have staff that look after it, who help orchestrate some of the meetings, et cetera. So really it's the collective effort and I think people were just getting good at doing it.

Speaker A: The value of that collective effort, what advantages could that give you in a constellation versus the tight density, let's say, of Boston or Cambridge?

Speaker B: Uh, well, I think one of the true advantages in Arizona, and maybe this is where a constellation is, you all have enough space to move around without falling over each other. And I mean there is that, you know, I mean, when you're in an older, like dense environment, sometimes like you have to, you have to figure out how to navigate. And uh, you have to do it both sort of intellectually and just from a physical thing. And sometimes then that means that people's voices aren't heard. I mean, I think our ability, even when we look at it like if we said Flagstaff, Tucson, down, like I mentioned, Yuma, Nogales, all of those, they're communities, like they're individual communities with their own characters and they know what their communities need. So I think actually a constellation might be the ideal thing to have because you're bringing different characters together to solve maybe common problems. The problems that we're trying to resolve or the markets that we're trying to navigate are complex. They're not easy. They're multifaceted. And you need that sort of multifaceted approach. So even if you look at our institutions, um, if you look at asu, U of A and nau, again, very different organizations, different strengths so they can attack a problem or address a problem with different perspectives. We have Mayo Clinic, we have Barrow Neurological Institute, Honor Health, Banner. They're all in the neurospace, but they all come to those, um, they come to different. They approach it differently. They have different strengths. Banner is really strong in Alzheimer's, for example, BNI is really good in Parkinson's, ALS, and actually there's an ALS program, research program at BNI St. Joe's that's bringing together all the other institutions around the very large grant from NIH to do so. So I think it's, uh, just a recognition that we have expertise scattered, um, and that expertise attracts other expertise. And it allows us just to bring, have these sort of cross institutional collaborations going on. We need to do more of it. We need to get better. And certainly areas like AI, data quantum, you know, these are all areas where people are now beginning to talk about, well, how do we address some issues there, how do we build strengths there? And no one organization or institution can do that.

Speaker A: Where are the weaknesses in the constellation? Where does that connective tissue need to be stronger?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think it's like everything. There are benefits and then there's obvious weaknesses, and the weakness is the sheer distance. Um, the weakness too might be just the fact that, um, funding within the university systems has obviously gone through a little bit of a turmoil. So it's finding stability, maybe finding some common focus on areas where the universities could maybe collaborate more strongly in some of those emerging areas. Um, you know, I mean, everybody's working hard to do these things, but sometimes you just, you know, it needs to happen. Um, and I would say on my. This is my personal opinion, but I really do think, I mean, innovation and innovation in the medical, in the medical fields all requires you to have a very strong relationship with your healthcare partners. So, you know, we have seen, uh, ASU build relationships with Mayo and now with Honor Health, as they think through the. Their new, um, medical school banner, U of A are aligned, you know, and stuff. So, like I said, Yuma Regional Medical center, which is now on vida, is aligned with their local community college. And now they're going to be aligned with the College of Medicine, Phoenix. So There are those alignments. But when I'm developing a product, if I'm developing a product that I say I want a patient to see sometime or benefit or I want to benefit, maybe more, um, efficient healthcare delivery, you know, uh, then I need to be able to validate that with healthcare partners. So personally, I think we probably aren't, um, we're not sort of, uh, that bridge into our health system to validate products is probably something that we need to refine. And I think it's our missing. It's. We're doing an okay job, but it needs to be so much better. And if you look at models around the world, if you look at what happens in Korea or in China and you go to any of these large centers, you know, you go around, you'll find people on the street working with like the third, fourth and fifth generation of a product because their local companies test it out on their local population or with their local population, they get that type of feedback, then they refine a product before they put it on the global markets. So if I'm a young doctor, I'm sitting in a health system and I'm developing a product that's going to help a patient, well, as an investor or somebody looking in at that, I look at that person, I say, well, if you can't sell it to your own health system, why would I be interested? So what is the partnership within health systems for them, like bringing technology out, but also how are they helping our broader ecosystem? First of all, identify products, uh, that would be helpful to them, cutting costs or whatever. But I really think we need to work a little bit better there.

Speaker A: Is there a role for an intermediary that helps me navigate that? So as I think about a constellation at scale, one of the things that we would be intimidating to me, particularly as a smaller company, the big ones can figure this out. But as a medium or smaller size company, how do I navigate? How do I find my way into honor, dignity, banner and vita? Uh, others. How do I work with asu, which in and of itself is a very large, uh, intimidating place? Or how might I work with the University of Arizona NAU somewhere else? Is there somewhere one who can guide me to be able to sort out and enter this very large constellation?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say that when all those things there should be. Yeah. And in sort of the ideal world, we should have like these very obvious areas, access points. I think our uh, like EasyBio Arizona Tech Council are also great resources, but we should be leveraging them more as very obvious points. Of access. You know, I'm coming from a meeting from the Tech Council this morning. I was just delighted just to sit in a room with all these people that I didn't know. And our common interest is medtech. So these organizations are very important. You know, uh, there's leaderships up in, uh, Flagstaff and Tucson. They have to be the first stop for people when they come into the States. Somebody should know. I need to talk to Azbio. I need to go to some of the meetings. And, uh, it's those organizations that can open, uh, the doors, um, and connect people. It's never going to be easy. It sounds really good. It's really hard to do because somebody always has to fund it. Um, Flynn is absolutely an intermediary. We see ourselves as conveners. We'll do what we can. But in the end of the day, it's the entrepreneurial spirit. If I need, if I'm developing a product, I just need to know that I need to go and find doctors to talk to. It's easy. If you lift the phone, you'll actually find somebody to talk to. So I think we have to get better at letting people know how to do this and that it's okay to do it because it's not a problem that one organization's going to solve.

Speaker A: It is that constellation, and everybody has a role in that. So what is one big bold move that Arizona hasn't made yet that it could, that might allow it to catapult up kind of the profile of a bioscience state?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, for me, the boldest move would be that if we had, first of all, if we had a mechanism to actually fund some of these larger collaboration projects, um, when they emerge. So, you know, the EDA sends out grants that talk about, like, building centers of translational expertise. They tend to come out late, you tend to have a short period of time. And we, as a state, we mobilize people, really work hard, put a lot of time and effort putting consortia together, but we really don't have a mechanism whereby people will have money on the table. And I mean across the board. I'm not just saying that it has to be studied, but we need a mechanism to have leaders in a room to make decisions quickly so that we can be more reactive and proactive in winning those types of opportunities. And I think that's a really important step for us. Um, you know, and then just in general, I don't think our hospital systems or medical systems and our industry and our young companies are actually building effective Bridges to validate products. And I think that's a really important step in an innovation ecosystem. I think it's currently missing for us.

Speaker A: How about the science?

Speaker B: Actually, longevity and brain health would be the two big ones for us. Like we have, ah, this, uh, brain, um, health down at U of A. A very strong group. And actually in parallel to that, they have a very strong school of pharmacy and pharmaceutical development. But then here in Phoenix you have, like I mentioned, the Alzheimer's Institute. It's sort of renowned globally for the work that they're doing. We have all the neuro, um, aspects of what's happening at bni, um, at what honor health does. So I would think if you had to ask me for one thing, it's that. But then the other areas of absolute, uh, immense potential is, uh, around data and, and data, health data. And we have such a great opportunity there. Um, and I think we're trying to. We're currently figuring out how to um, organize that.

Speaker A: Sounds great. Sounds like the imperative ahead, which I think is one of the things you have in the roadmap, is how we think about these things.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think so. And you know, it's the nice thing is the roadmap brings people together to talk about this. So it's not only me, but there's a large number of people and we're talking the same way, um, which just gives us, I think, a foot up against our competition.

Speaker A: Before I let you go, one question I've been asking everybody this season. Is there something that you're reading that's particularly interesting you'd like to share? And is there something on your playlist that you're listening to that's fun?

Speaker B: I read all the time. Um, you know, I read sort of reports all the time. So when I go home, I actually do diy. So I will be painting a room.

Speaker A: Well, I was gonna say, what's your latest project?

Speaker B: So I'm working on a renovation of the house.

Speaker A: Wonderful.

Speaker B: So I will say I am probably not your best read person.

Speaker A: Is there something you listen to while you're doing your work?

Speaker B: Well, you know, I am from Ireland, so I tend to listen to some of the old radio shows, uh, from Ireland. Uh, just again, it's just a way for me to stay connected.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, connection is what it is all about. And I appreciate you connecting with us today.

Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you very much, Tom.

Speaker A: My guest today has been Mary O'Reilly. She is the vice president of bioscience research programs for the Flynn Foundation. I'm Tom Osha and this has been the Commons. The Commons is a production of Wexford Science and Technology, llc. Views and opinions expressed are solely those of the host and guest. To view additional material about today's episode, submit questions or story ideas, or learn more about Wexford Science and technology, please visit www.wexfordscitech.com the Commons I'm your host, Tom Osha. Thanks for listening.