Distinguished Speaker Series -- Comments by Jennifer Rhodes

Jennifer Rhodes is a partner in Ice Miller's Private Equity/Venture Services Practice. Her primary area of concentration is in private equity fund formation and operations, venture capital and private equity financings, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters.

Dr. Homer L. Pearce's remarks during Ice Miller's recent life science distinguished speaker's series highlight the importance of sufficient research funding for success in the war on cancer. Research and development costs associated with identifying pharmaceutical solutions are particularly daunting and, given the time to market and current patent protection periods, sometimes commercially unjustifiable.

As a result of the targeted efforts of many, including the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and BioCrossroads, among others, Indiana's unique contribution to the national life science sector is becoming increasingly recognized - not only in terms of its many research institutions, major pharma companies and contract service providers, but also with respect to availability of funding. In 2006, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Indiana ranked 21^st in the nation for venture capital investments in the life science sector.

According to the S&P-2006, Purdue and Indiana University currently have $200 million in academic life science funding commitments and graduate 10,000 science and engineering students each year. Both institutions are developing innovative diagnostic equipment and pharmaceutical protocols that, with appropriate funding, can bring life saving treatments to market. The financial needs of Indiana's innovators have not gone unnoticed by public and private financial sources that are positioned to fund such developments.

In 2008, we should expect to see further growth in Indiana's life science community as our state's leading research scientists build on the efforts of past scientific contributors to develop cutting-edge technologies and as funding sources become increasingly available both locally and nationally.