Healthy Imagination
Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center provides home for emerging biomedical advancements

By John Elliott

Medicine and technology are replacing heavy manufacturing as the backbone of Cleveland’s economy. The latest evidence of this is the recent opening of the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (GCIC) incubator building, located on two acres between East 100th and East 101st streets at Cedar Avenue. The three-story, glass and stainless steel building bridges the Cleveland Clinic Campus with the adjacent Fairfax neighborhood in both a symbolic and architectural manner.

Strategically located near the main Cleveland Clinic campus, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals, the incubator offers 50,000 square feet of prime, state-of-the-art workspace. Clients enjoy customizable laboratory facilities for new product research and development activities, flexible office space and conference rooms. The facility provides clients with access to world-leading clinicians and investigators, along with host of business support services.

The incubator is a component of the GCIC, which was established in 2007 and funded by a $60 million grant from Ohio's Third Frontier Project to the Cleveland Clinic. The grant mandated establishing a center designed to promote, support and fund the development of solutions in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease and to establish an economic benefit for the state of Ohio.

While the Cleveland Clinic leads the GCIC effort, five other Ohio institutions are involved: Case Western Reserve University, Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, University of Toledo, and University Hospitals of Cleveland. GCIC is partnered with local businesses and community organizations as well.

GCIC provides several interconnected programs for companies, which include: funding, to help young companies move out of the lab and on the road to commercialization; attraction, to help attract bioscience businesses to Ohio; and product acceleration, which includes availability of industry experts to consult with new companies to help them determine an effective timeline, navigate regulatory agencies, run clinical trials and obtain follow-up funding.

The incubator program is a key component of GCIC. Several companies have begun the process of becoming tenants in the incubator's new building. A few of these companies are spin-offs from research originating at the Cleveland Clinic. Overall, the products of these companies include drugs to treat heart disease, stem cell and regenerative medicines, cardiac diagnostic biomarkers to help those that might suffer from various types of heart disease, scaffolding devices to treat peripheral arterial disease and ventricular assist devices.

“The new building is where we are doing a lot of it,” says Mark Low, managing director of GCIC, who brings 30 years experience in cardiovascular medicine. He notes this facility replaces a 15,000-square-foot building at East 102 St. and Carnegie that GCIC used since 2004. The new building was specifically built to support GCIC activities. “This is one of the very few, if not the first dedicated building that has a cardiovascular focus. It’s a very flexible program; we can provide the amount of space they (tenants) need.”

To read the rest of this article, download the July 2010 issue of Properties Magazine now. [July 2010; download PDF; 11.9 mb]