Gov. Charlie Baker touts grants, teases legislation at biotech conference
BOSTON — Gov. Charlie Baker announced to a biotech conference Monday that the state would be investing $6.7 million in capital funding into nine projects focused on imaging, cancer, neuroscience and drug discovery research, and foreshadowed legislation furthering efforts to create a digital health record database.
Baker dropped by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council's digital health conference at the Intercontinental hotel to talk up Massachusetts's role in the growing digital health field.
Massachusetts is "an ideal location for digital health firms" because of health institutions, academic research and development centers and access to venture capital, Baker said. McKinsey estimates the digital health sector will grow to become a more than $350 billion industry by 2025, according to the administration.
The $6.7 million in investments from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center in "data-driven, cross-sector" projects is the "first step in this particular direction," Baker said.
The money was steered toward non-profits that partnered with at least one for-profit life sciences company in Massachusetts, and was awarded through the center's "Bits to Bytes " capital program. The roughly $750,000 awards will be bolstered by $13 million in non-profit and industry matching funds.
