When Dr. Mingju Cao relocated from Los Angeles to North Texas in 2021, he faced a big challenge — uprooting his company, Kinetiq Therapeutics.
Founded in 2015, the biotechnology startup focuses on developing replacement enzymes and drugs that decrease the treatment burden for people with kidney failure.
Cao, who previously worked as a pharmacist, launched Kinetiq after working with kidney-transplant patients and seeing the ways diseases such as diabetes and hypertension affect the organ, he said.
Because of his move to Texas, Cao had to let go of his two employees. Then, with a desire to get his projects restarted and limited resources, he needed to find an affordable new space — fast.
Looking online, he came across UNT Health Science Center Next in Fort Worth, an incubator that provides startups and small businesses with resources and lab space to help them grow.
Cao also looked at Dallas, which also is experiencing a booming biotech scene and attracting investors looking for opportunities outside Boston, the largest biotech hub in the world, and Silicon Valley.
After much deliberation, Cao decided on Fort Worth — a decision the city is trying to replicate. Amid the booming biotech and life sciences industry in North Texas, other founders are looking to Tarrant County as the spot to grow their companies.
Biotech boom in North Texas
Since 2019, North Texas’ total life sciences and biotech labor pool has increased by 17% (26,000 workers), surpassing the average national growth of 13.7%, according to a report from real estate firm CBRE. The region’s research and development employment has also increased 44.5% since that year.
The real estate firm also named Dallas-Fort Worth as one of the top emerging life sciences markets in terms of size, institutions, talent and rapid growth, alongside Nashville and Atlanta.
In September, North Texas took another step forward to becoming a bigger life sciences hub when the region was awarded federal designation to be the Customer Experience Hub for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
The designation will bring federal funds, programs and attract talent to North Texas’ growing biotech and life sciences industries.
Pegasus Park in Dallas, a 26-acre life sciences and biotech campus, will be the physical focus of the Customer Experience Hub, but Fort Worth and other partner cities will be key to the effort.
‘Affordable laboratory space’
For the past nine years, Ayuvis Research Inc. has been incubated in Fort Worth.
Founded in February 2014, the pharmaceutical company focuses on developing multifunctional molecules that boost the body’s natural ability to fight disorders associated with immunomodulation, inflammation and microbial infection.
When founder and CEO Dr. Suchi Acharya decided to launch Ayuvis, she was split between wanting Dallas or Fort Worth for the company’s headquarters.
She needed a research lab with work space and expensive instruments to serve Ayuvis in its early stages.
After comparing the cities, she found a better opportunity at UNT HSC.
In Fort Worth, the space was more affordable, with lower fees, and better accommodated smaller companies that had less resources, she said.
“In the early stages, we had to be highly conservative in cash spending,” Acharya said. “We found the affordable laboratory space to be more available in Fort Worth. That drove me to stay.”
Cao had a similar experience.
When looking for an incubation space, Cao considered Pegasus Park. The Dallas hub features a membership-only, co-working facility, called BioLabs, with 37,000 square feet of lab, training, and office space.
Cao looked into the facility, but didn’t believe the space catered to early-stage companies that had less funding, he said.
“Pegasus Park is better suited for larger-size companies, medium-sized companies or even startups that have venture or sizable funding,” he said. “The Health Science Center and Fort Worth provide a lot of the university resources and technical expertise for the small companies to utilize.”
Institutional help
When Elyse Dickerson and Joe Griffin launched their ear care company Eosera in 2015, one thing was certain — the company would be based in Fort Worth.
Dickerson is a Fort Worth native and Griffin has spent over 20 years in the city.
Although they were familiar with the region, the company had to answer one big question: What do we need to ensure our success?
That year, Eosera connected with TechFW, a startup accelerator and business incubator, which provides institutional support and funding to tech entrepreneurs.
Founded in 1998, TechFW was launched to diversify the Fort Worth economy with an emphasis on medical technologies. In 2003, the organization broadened to include companies with proprietary technology.
The incubator provided Eosera at inception with the resources to launch and grow the business, said Dickerson.
“TechFW really helped us get our start,” she said. “They have some really unique programming that is not currently available anywhere else in Dallas-Fort Worth.”
Since then, Eosera has expanded to over 28,000 stores across the country and achieved a three-year revenue growth of 292%.
In September, the company expanded from a 17,000-square-foot facility to a new 36,499-square-foot space.
“The new space is indicative of our growth, and the many challenges we’ve overcome,” Dickerson previously said in a statement. “It’s surreal to see how far we’ve come, but I don’t spend much time looking backward as we’ve so much to accomplish in our future.”
‘Long way to go’
Acharya remembers when there were fewer biotech companies starting up in North Texas. With every passing year, she’s seeing more and more startups drawn to the region’s research and ecosystem, she said.
Still, she believes Fort Worth needs a lot of improvements to continue supporting the boom and keep companies located here.
Recently, Acharya considered relocating Ayuvis to BioLabs at Pegasus Park — her love for Fort Worth is keeping her here.
Still, she’s keeping her options open as Dallas continues picking up steam, she said.
“In that competitor aspect, Dallas is picking up more than Fort Worth,” Acharya said. “If Ayuvis grows and we have a need to go to Dallas, that’s a different story.”
Some of the big barriers Fort Worth needs to overcome is growing its funding and looking at ways to expand its biotech infrastructure, she said.
“We are getting a lot of traction. We still have a long way to go when it comes to growing and looking for more funding, infrastructure, commercialization and institutional investment for when companies progress to clinical stages,” Acharya said.
Cao hopes to see more companies relocate to Fort Worth. When the city creates a critical mass of companies, it will bring more attention and significance to the region, he said.
“Perhaps Fort Worth needs to create a space where we can attract more investor funding and create these environments where investors can take a look at the companies and drive them forward,” said Cao.
As for TechFW, the organization recognizes the biotech gaps that exist within the city, especially with capital and talent.
Still, Hayden Blackburn, executive director of TechFW, sees those gaps as a good thing. As long as there are gaps, there will always be champions to fill them out and build success, he said.
Blackburn is hopeful more biotech and life sciences hubs, like Pegasus Park, will make their way toward Fort Worth.
“Pegasus Park is not a one-and-done type of thing,” he said. “This type of strategy can be redone. There is no hesitation to create more infrastructure. Within innovation, you need the human capital, financial capital, intellectual capital and physical capital to create more opportunities in Fort Worth.”
David Moreno is the health reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.
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