[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato and we kick off the program.

He's been with us before, he is Chris Paladino, President of New Brunswick Development Corporation, DEVCO.

Good to see you, Chris.

- Good to see you, Steve.

Great to be back.

- Chris, I'm looking behind you.

Is that what I think it is?

Is that the Helix, the Health and Life Science Exchange in New Brunswick?

Is that it?

- So actually it is H1.

It's the first building of the Helix.

Eventually the Helix will be three separate buildings on a four acre site in downtown New Brunswick across the street from the train station, probably approaching 1.6 million square feet.

This is the first 550,000 square feet.

- We've talked about this before with Chris as things have evolved, explain to folks why the Helix, why the Health and Life Science Exchange, first of all, why it matters so much, not just to the state and the nation when it comes to innovation and research but also who the players are involved in it, go ahead.

- Well, look, I think this comes from the governor's, you know, program of a stronger and fairer economy to basically put New Jersey back into its former place of a global power in innovation.

And this is a big step towards that.

So what we're doing with H1 is we're bringing Rutgers translational research, that is researchers who are ready to take work from the bench to the bedside.

We're bringing the medical school and we're bringing the innovation hub where entrepreneurs can do startup companies.

They can take discovery and commercialize it and put it into one ecosystem.

- So Rutgers is playing a key role, but DEVCO, explain to everyone what the New Brunswick Development Corporation is and why DEVCO is so involved.

- You know, look, the New Brunswick Development Corporation is a not-for-profit company that, we help put things together.

So what we've done here is Rutgers is a major player in this project but we've also brought core partners,, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority Hackensack Meridian Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health System, Princeton University, DEVCO itself, Middlesex County.

And then we've started to bring other partners.

We've got the University of Tel Aviv involved in this project, we have Atlanta.

- Whoa, back up.

Why the University of Tel Aviv?

Why would they be connected to this?

- Because, you know, Rutgers has created a relationship with the University of Tel Aviv.

And look, we live in a global world and they're doing joint shared research and it'll be done here in New Brunswick, it'll be done in Tel Aviv, it'll be done remotely.

But also we've created a partnership with the Atlantic Technology Institute in Galway that has a very large entrepreneur biotech program.

And we're going to host in this building five Irish companies doing medical devices who are going to come here with the intent to try to commercialize in the United States.

- Chris, shift gears for a second.

so the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.

The connection between that bank and the tech world, right?

So many tech companies involved connected with Silicon Valley Bank.

What, if any, impact do you see with the work you and your colleagues are doing as it relates to high-tech innovation, tech-centric companies, and financing?

Loaded question, I know, but obviously you've been talking about this as we've been talking about it right now.

- Well, what we're trying to accomplish and do using it to create an ecosystem and environment where collaboration and discovery can create creative collisions.

But a important part of that is an academic scientist has a discovery, it gets licensed.

They start to try to commercialize, they move into our innovation hub.

One of the reasons that the New Jersey Economic Development Authority has been an major important partner is that the Governor's Evergreen Fund, the venture capital fund, is gonna be located in this building.

And it will also be a place where venture capitalists can have offices and become partners.

They can see the type of work that's being done and make that direct connection and hopefully make that first and second phase of investment to help grow those companies.

So we're trying to make it easier for these folks to collaborate, to understand what they're doing, and then eventually invest.

- But the financing is huge.

You seem to be saying, you are saying, Chris, that what I just described with the concerns about the banking industry and particularly that particular bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and the tech world, is not related to this.

- It's not.

I mean, it's not.

Because we're at that stage where we're looking at people doing first phase investment of equity into small companies.

You know, that later stage when you're growing your companies and you're going to banks for types of financing, that that's the next stage.

I mean, look, we're very fortunate to be in the financial capital of the world here.

It's one of the reasons that, you know, besides having more engineers and PhDs in New Jersey per square mile we're also 30 miles from Wall Street here.

So being able to have people really connect and to be able to visit someone's laboratory and look in their microscope and understand what they're doing is gonna be a big leg up for this trying to commercialize discovery that goes on here.

- Before I let you go, Chris, jobs connected to this initiative.

What are we talking?

- The first thing we gotta start with is that in this building alone, when it's at capacity, be close to 2000 people who will work in this building.

We're gonna be 2400 construction jobs.

But our economist has said that the work that will be done here will generate $800 million in the first 10 years of new NIH funding.

- NIH, National Institutes of Health, go ahead.

- $100 million of new license and patent revenue to Rutgers.

And our economists had said that those licenses and patents will generate 5000 new jobs in the region over 10 years.

- And again, the connection to the, make it clear we're not here to do a commercial for Governor Murphy.

Not our job.

But how is the Governor's office involved?

- Look, these are conversations that in this room I had with Governor Murphy before he became governor, throughout transition, and then as they were developing their economic plan and if you go through the fairer and and stronger economy, their program, there's probably four or five pages of that program dedicated to this.

This is something that has been central.

It's something that he and I talk about on a daily basis.

Or talk to the chief of staff, the head of the EDA.

This is a critical part of showing that New Jersey can recapture its place in the innovation economy.

We lost that.

You know, you go to Kendall Square in Cambridge and all of the companies that are headquartered in New Jersey are doing research in that neighborhood.

And we just want to bring some of that back.

- Chris Paladino, he's the President of New Brunswick Development Corporation, otherwise known as DEVCO.

Chris, I wanna thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks, Steve.

It's always great.

- You got it.

Stay with us, We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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