Kansas City Area Life Sciences

“The organization has a policy for the organization's audit committee to review the 990 before it is filed.”

“All staff and directors must submit any conflicts of interest on an annual basis. If a conflict arises within the board, the disclosing individual shall neither vote nor endeavor to influence the decision.”

“Compensation of the organization's president is agreed upon by the board of directors and finalized via a written employment contract. This approval is documented in the minutes of the board. In 2013 the organization created a compensation committee and has planned a compensation study to further refine the compensation process.”

“The organization's governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements are only available upon request.”

“2013 accomplishments: 1. Fourth triennial kansas city area life sciences industry census. The kansas city area life sciences institute (kcalsi) has collected regional information about the life science industry for over 10 years and published the 4th census in january 2013. Our census is used by universities, economic development organizations, industries and elected officials to understand the growth and impact the life science industry is having in the greater kansas city region. The census is available for anyone to download from our website http://www.kclifesciences.org/news/industry-census/. Highlights from the census revealed a 17% increase in life science companies from 2009 through 2012 and a 21% increase in employment amid a time of significant economic stagnation in the united states. The most rapidly growing sector, medical devices, showed a 39% increase in companies in the past 3 years and 82% increase in the past 6 years. The census also highlighted the importance of the 11 regional incubators to our industry growth. Of 67 new companies since 2009, 30 of the companies are located in the incubators. 2. Bioresearch central a study, commissioned by the kansas bioscience authority, kansasbio, kcalsi and kcadc, illustrated that the greater kansas city region is home to over 90 contract research organizations (cros) and contract service providers (csps), employing over 9,000 employees and generating over $1 billion in annual revenue. A second study, conducted by the tufts university center for the study of drug development (the premier pharmaceutical benchmarking institution) categorized the greater kc region as top 5 in the us in expertise and top 15 in the us in size. The second annual summit for the regional cro/csp industry was held in november 2013 with bi-state support from kcalsi, kansasbio and mobio. Over 180 people attended the symposium that also featured 40 industry exhibitors. Additionally, networking events and training programs throughout the year function to coalesce the network and create an infrastructure that accelerates regional drug and medical device development. Kcalsi has taken a leading role in facilitating bioresearch central advisory board meetings, networking events and ensuring operational success for the program. 3. Funding missouri technology corporation kcalsi and several of our strategic partners have been working to develop sustainable funding for the missouri technology corporation (mtc) which plays a role similar to the kansas bioscience authority (kba) for kansas. In 2012 we developed and advocated for the passage of mosira. Unfortunately the missouri state supreme court declared the bill unconstitutional due to a technical detail the linkage to another bill that did not pass. In 2013, the coalition focused on directly funding the missouri technology corporation through the missouri legislature. Funding is critical to the long-term success of missouri in the development and commercialization of life science innovations. 4. Pcori working group - outcomes research dr. Patrick james and keith gary convened a broad group of organizations with interests in outcomes research to discuss a regional approach to competing for funding from the patient centered outcomes research institute (pcori). There was agreement on exploring strategies for leveraging local outcomes research assets in cardiovascular medicine into a significant infrastructure capable of supporting outcomes research in a much broader range of disease conditions. Kcalsi is facilitating the process and organized a working group comprised of representative stakeholders in outcomes research, it, and insurers. The group proposed two initial pilot projects, 1) coronary artery disease and 2) back pain. 5. Kcalsi's research grant programs kcalsi has administered research grants for several years. Applicants, regardless of whether they receive funding or not, receive peer-reviewed feedback that is used to improve future grant applicatio”

“(continued) 6. Commitment to the kc chamber's 5 big ideas for the region kcalsi has worked for more than 14 years to advance our regional life sciences. We are fortunate to have several of our regular program activities integrated in the kansas city chamber's "big 5." specifically, three of the big 5 fall squarely in priorities wherein we continue to advance key programs: 1) growing kansas city's medical research, 2) a world symposium on animal health, 3) making kansas city america's most entrepreneurial city. Growing kansas city's medical research a. Nci designation was received in july 2012 and was a significant regional win for health care, cancer research and patients everywhere. B. Leveraging the $20 million nih clinical and translational science award grant to frontiers: the heartland institute for clinical and translational research based at the university of kansas medical center involves 3 medical centers, 10 health systems and 15 community partners. This is a unique, bi-state collaboration led by richard j. Barohn, md, and lauren s. Aaronson, phd rn faan, that includes several kcalsi stakeholders and serves as a foundation for growing this sector. Kcalsi also presents an annual human translational research symposium with frontier leaders. C. Developing a funding mechanism to support a world-class institute for translational medicine (itm). The itm is envisioned as a world-class scientific research organization that will translate basic research discoveries into clinical applications and commercial products. It will build upon the ongoing regional effort and expand, but not duplicate, current capabilities. Economic modeling was completed in 2013 and demonstrated that the itm would create over 550 direct and indirect jobs with the total economic impact exceeding $1 billion in the first 10 years including construction. Working with the kansas city civic council, elected officials and our stakeholders we successfully brought a proposal to fund the itm in jackson county for a vote in november 2013. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful in convincing voters to accept a tax to fund the itm. Since the vote, we continue to have broad support of the concept for the kansas city region and are developing a strategy targeted to philanthropy. D. Coordinating regional translational medicine meetings of all stakeholders to initiate scientific networking and collaboration. The first meeting was hosted in columbia, mo by the university of missouri in april 2013. A world symposium on animal health after extensive analysis, there was agreement that a world symposium for animal health would not significantly add to the existing annual animal health events in kansas city. In 2014, we plan to improve integration of the kcalsi animal health research symposium with the central veterinary conference, technology transfer event, corridor homecoming and investment forum activities in kc to build attendance and national interest to travel to kc. Making kansas city, "america's most entrepreneurial city" -sprint accelerator: in 2013, sprint and techstars announced the launch of the sprint accelerator focusing on mobile health apps in the crossroads. We are acting as mentors in the accelerator and engaging our stakeholder community to support the startups in the accelerator. -entrepreneurial networks: kcalsi helps promote and conduct networking activities with the 11 regional incubators and the medical device network to support our entrepreneurial ecosystem. 7. Digital sandbox the goal of the digital sandbox is to significantly accelerate the development of it-oriented startups in kansas city, where it is already a major economic engine. The project is developing 12 new companies that have secured equity investment of more than $7,000,000. Umkc partnered with private sector companies who are contributing financial and personnel resources, including sprint, hallmark, vml, rarewire, cerner, sparklabkc and umb. Kcalsi is a key partner participating in the”

“(continued) 9. Significant event highlights - on june 20, 2013, kcalsi and frontiers jointly presented a symposium entitled "integrating technology into translational research" featuring national and regional speakers and a panel focused on digital and social media in patient recruitment. Over 170 scientists and entrepreneurs attended the translational medicine symposium. - on august 26, 2013, we held our animal health symposium entitled "zoobiquitous research" featuring kathyrn bowers, author of the book "zoobiquity" as the keynote speaker. Kathyrn bowers and other speakers highlighted the opportunity to better understand the similarities between human and animal diseases to accelerate drug development for both humans and animals. - on october 1, 2013, we held our annual dinner entitled "big data, translational medicine, transforming our region." our dinner featured keynote speaker john wilbanks, a senior fellow at the kauffman foundation and chief commons officer at sage bionetworks, and invited speaker, dr. Stephen kingsmore of children's mercy hospital, with over 550 people in attendance. - on november 19 & 20, 2013, kcalsi, biokansas and mobio jointly presented the second annual cro summit entitled "bridging research to cures", featuring keynote speakers john carroll from fiercebio, sally howard, deputy director of fda and charles ruegg, director of chorus, a division of eli lilly. 10. Kcalsi communications our communications are focused on informing the community about important developments at our stakeholders and the region. They often serve as a point of entry for people, organizations or companies interested in exploring the region for potential collaborations. Our communication vehicles include: - a monthly kcalsi@-a-glance, compiles news stories on important stakeholder and regional developments. - a 3 times/year life sciences bulletin features stories on important assets and developments in the region, and key developments at our stakeholders. - social media: - we actively communicate on twitter at @kcalsi to disseminate life science news and retweet communications from our stakeholders. - we create professional discussion topics on linkedin and communicate regional events at "kansas city area life sciences" discussion group. - we created a historical timeline for kcalsi and significant regional developments for the general public and utilize facebook as a mechanism to visually communicate translational research. - we created a special site on our website, expert exchange, to highlight regional experts with video and text describing their research and clinical contributions.”