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Cuomo and the WNY Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) announced the state will invest $50 million in biomedical-research equipment and facilities. They also announced an agreement with Albany Molecular Research, Inc. (AMRI), which plans to locate a new drug-discovery research and development center on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
"We announce a company AMRI, which is a bio-research firm, does work all across the globe," Cuomo said.
The state investment includes $35 million for new equipment and $15 million for improving existing lab space. The investment will leverage $200 million in private investments and create 250 jobs.
The advanced manufacturing and health-sciences approaches to job growth, two key tenets of Cuomo's overall Buffalo Billion investment, will be based on recreating what nano-electronic research and development did for the Capital Region in Western New York, instead using nano-biomedical R&D.
Before making the AMRI announcement, the WNYREDC presented Cuomo with its Buffalo Billion Investment Development Plan.
The governor has committed $1 billion in investment in Buffalo area economy to create thousands of jobs and spur billions in new investment and economic activity over several years.
The plan recommends six investable initiatives, including:
-- Buffalo Center for Manufacturing Innovation: a state-of-the-art facility to support the growth of the region’s manufacturing sector. It will be a shared services enterprise that provides support in commercializing applied research, developing more efficient operational processes, enabling entry into new markets, and up-skilling the existing workforce.
-- The Buffalo Science Productivity and Research Catalyzer (SPaRC): to help bring breakthrough healthcare innovations to market. The Accelerator supports researchers in developing translational research, acquiring patents, and then licensing those patents or developing them into businesses.
-- Buffalo Niagara Tourism Program: a regional tourism program to leverage the world-class tourism assets in Niagara Falls and the City of Buffalo through a more coordinated and sophisticated marketing strategy; investments and increased programming in the Niagara State Park; investments in other regional tourism assets and amenities; and the creation of regional offerings.
-- The Buffalo Skills Partnership: a skills broker with initial investments in Rapid Right Skilling and Say Yes. The partnership will make Buffalo’s workforce system the most flexible, diverse and responsive in the nation by aligning education and training behind the skills employers need to expand and workers need for job success.
-- Buffalo Breakthrough Business Challenge: a world-class business plan competition to catalyze the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Winners will receive initial funding, incubator space, mentorship and introductions to leading venture capital firms
-- Better Buffalo Fund: to make targeted investments through a dedicated fund to support high impact economic and community development projects. A competition will determine the best investments, based on overall strategic fit, impact, proven capacity for execution and commitment of additional funds.
The WNYREDC will play a key role in how the funding is used to support the expansion of local companies and how to target the attraction of new businesses across the country and around the globe to come to Buffalo. Those businesses will likely be related in some manner to the cluster industries identified by the WNYREDC in its strategic plan, which includes advanced manufacturing, agricultural/food processing, bi national logistics and distribution, energy, life sciences/medical devices, and professional services.