Promises delivered
The Carilion Biomedical Institute was established to stimulate regional economic development through medical technology advancement, business creation, and research collaboration.  We are delivering on these goals with more than $100 million in economic impact, 12 new companies, and more than 100 new jobs in the Roanoke and New River Valleys since 2003.    More important than these accomplishments, however, are the relationships and institutions that have sprung from CBI which are now creating growth even beyond CBI's long-term targets.

Growing a bioscience sphere
CBI's medical technology advancement goal has been built around our ability to create new companies from university research and attract other growing companies to this area to join a growing bioscience enterprise.  A very promising example of one of the companies that CBI created from laboratory research is OcuCure, Inc. OcuCure used CBI-sponsored technology and investment to create an eye-drop formula to stop blood vessel growth at the back of the eye called macular degeneration.  This horrible disease blinds 200,000 Americans annually.  OcuCure, headquartered in Roanoke, has now raised more than $2 million in investment and is working to develop the compound into an FDA-approved drug. 

Building blocks for a strong partnership
CBI's goal was to stimulate research by investing in partnerships among Carilion, Virginia Tech, and the University of Virginia.  By the end of 2006, these three institutions had collaborated to conduct $17 million in laboratory research which has resulted in 100 discoveries, 68 inventions, and 22 patents.  While those numbers are significant, the longer-term outcome of this work has been the full blown partnership between Carilion and Virginia Tech that now includes the recently announced joint medical school and Carilion/Virginia Tech research institute which will have the expertise to continue advancing the research mission and spawn research which far exceeds CBI's early lofty goals.

From brown-field to biomedical hub
CBI along with Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the City of Roanoke has helped to achieve the goal of developing Riverside Center from a brown-field into a biomedical hub.  Development and construction has commenced, is underway or has concluded on Riverside 1, the 200,000 square foot Clinic building and accompanying parking garage and the Virginia Tech Carilion School and Medicine and the Research Institute.  CBI also secured a hotel which is now under construction and will be open in the summer of 2009. 

By developing new research, companies, and jobs, CBI has already created more economic impact than the capital invested in it at its inception.  More importantly however is the foundation that has been laid for the next generation of physicians, healthcare delivery, and innovations that will result from the early work that Carilion, CBI and others have done.  This work will ultimately help the Roanoke and New River Valleys achieve even greater success.