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Gathering Place
 Edwin C. Cadman |
Kakaako medical school
will build a new science
industry in HawaiiEditor's note: This essay was written in response to a commentary in Tuesday's Star-Bulletin by Webster Nolan headlined "Kakaako medical school may be costly boondoggle."
The new University of Hawaii medical school being built in Kakaako can lead the biotechnology effort for Hawaii, as has been done elsewhere in this country. Examples are San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Boston, Baltimore, New York City and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. All of these biotechnology sites have developed around areas where medical discoveries are being made; mainly at research medical schools and biomedical research institutes.
The UH medical school's new mission, in addition to continuing our outstanding education program, is to become a research-intensive medical school. Through this research initiative we can become the focal point of a new bioscience campus-park for Hawaii. This would be a public-private partnership, with the academic environment acting as the nurturing place for the biotech industry.
Moreover, because of the the medical school's educational mission, it will have conference rooms, an auditorium and a medical library that would be available to members of the greater bioscience campus-park and the community.
The bioscience campus-park is being developed at a 10-acre site in Kakaako. The medical school will relocate its education and administration into one building, which will open in September 2004. A research building that will accommodate the basic research of the school will be open in September 2005.
Kakaako is the ideal site to create a bioscience industry for the state because sufficient land is available for the private sector to build additional research buildings. This leasable research space is critical to Hawaii's effort to support a new biotech industry. Small biotech companies that will grow from the discoveries made at the medical school will be housed in this space.
The process already has begun. The biotech company Tissue Genesis recently relocated in the Gold Bond building to be close to the medical school. We also are developing a memorandum of agreement with a Japanese consortium of pharmaceutical companies that wishes to build a research facility on the medical school site.
The medical school will create between 500 and 600 jobs, which, when combined with current jobs to be moved to Kakaako (500 to 600), will total 1,000 to 1,200 employees. That includes both staff and faculty. The private-sector estimates are a total of 1,000 new research and staff jobs. Eighty percent of the research jobs will be research associates (college graduates) and research technicians (high school graduates). The estimated annual economic benefits of this campus would be: medical school research --$75 million to $80 million, and private sector research -- $100 million to $125 million. In total, that's $175 million to $205 million per year.
The National Institutes of Health, in addition to the direct funds that support salaries, equipment and supplies, also pay the true cost of doing research. Through this indirect cost rate mechanism, the NIH will support the true costs of doing business. The calculation of the indirect cost rate includes such items as depreciation, maintenance, utilities and other costs associated with the true business of research.
This is like the federal government paying all of the costs for a business building or a hotel -- all the costs. The annual operating costs of the research building will be part of the grants we receive from the NIH.
Medical research is a multibillion-dollar industry. The NIH's fiscal year 2003 budget has been proposed at $27 billion. The Veterans Administration has budgeted nearly $1 billion for research. More comes from private foundations, such as the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, American Heart Association, National Kidney Foundation, American Diabetes Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, American Lung Association and others. Pharmaceutical companies also have contracted out research to medical schools. There is a total of $30 billion to $35 billion earmarked for biomedical research in this country, and most of that goes to medical schools and private research institutes to support their research.
From last July through June 30, the UH medical school faculty has been awarded $46.9 million from grants and contracts. The research component was $25.6 million, a 700 percent increase over 1999. This astounding research productivity is evidence that our faculty possesses the energy and creativity to take our medical school to the next level -- to continue our essential role to train physicians for Hawaii and the Pacific region, and now to become the focal point to build a thriving biotechnology industry.
Another indication of the interest of our project at the national level is that we have recruited Dr. Duane Gubler from the National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His team is responsible for all mosquito-transmitted illness, such dengue and West Nile. He wishes to establish a tropical disease center at our medical school focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, where most new infections, such as SARS, emerge.
The state authorized the university to borrow $150 million to finance the new school. We sold the bonds in June 2002. The construction project is putting between 600 and 700 local people to work. Architects Hawaii is the design team, and the construction company is Hawaiian Dredging/Kijima. So most of this new money will be staying in the state.
This endeavor is not just about our medical school. It is about revitalizing Kakaako; diversifying Hawaii's economy through biotechnology; and creating new jobs and new dollars.
Edwin C. Cadman, M.D., is dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii.
