Taft Presents $2.2 Million in Third Frontier Awards to Cincinnati Companies
CINCINNATI, OHIO (October 23, 2003) - Governor Bob Taft today announced more than $2.1 million in Third Frontier Action Fund awards to two Cincinnati-area projects. Taft also announced a $99,750 Third Frontier Internship Program for the Cincinnati area, which will create 50 internships and 10 externships.
"We can't compete by making boots or bicycles in Ohio anymore," Taft said. "Ohio must be the place where new knowledge is used to create new products, new businesses and new jobs. And we must be a leader in the new, promising technologies of the future, like advanced materials."
Governor Taft presented Girindus America, Inc. with a $1,162,111 Third Frontier Action Fund award, which will enable the company to produce cheaper, purer DNA and RNA fragments for medical treatments. The project will produce fragments of DNA and RNA in large quantities for use by small biotech companies to develop genetic therapeutics to treat human diseases. The project is in collaboration with the Genome Research Institute (GRI) and the University of Cincinnati, who received a $9 million FY2002 Third Frontier Biomedical Partnership award to advance their efforts to develop a center for accelerated drug discovery.
Taft awarded a Third Frontier Action Fund Award of $968,426 to Triathlon Medical Ventures, LLC. Triathlon Medical Ventures is a Cincinnati-based venture capital firm that invests in early and expansion stage bioscience companies with biomedical technology platforms and/or products addressing significant human healthcare needs. The Third Frontier Action Fund award will be used to establish an early stage venture capital fund in Ohio and the region dedicated to investing in biomedical start-ups.
Led by the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, the Third Frontier Internship Program in Cincinnati will connect Ohio youth with Cincinnati-area high-tech internships. The $99,750 funding announced today will create 50 internships and 10 externships.
The Third Frontier Project is Taft's $1.6 billion job creation program to expand Ohio's high-tech research capabilities and promote start-up companies to create high-paying jobs. It is the state's largest-ever economic development investment and has received bi-partisan support from the Ohio Legislature. The final part of the Third Frontier Project, a $500 million bond program up for voter approval in November, would allow the state to allocate $50 million annually over the next 10 years to attract top research talent to Ohio institutions, help with the development and commercialization of new products and create new, good jobs for Ohioans.
