The National Business Incubation Association has named the Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator as a finalist for the 2013 Incubator of the Year Award in the technology focus category. The winner will be announced April 9 at NBIA’s conference in Boston.
The Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator, located in the Progress Corporate Park in Alachua, is operated by the University of Florida. The 40,000-square-foot facility, opened in 1995, was one of the first biotechnology incubators in the country.
Many of the companies that started at the incubator have been highly successful. They include Pasteuria, which produces bacteria that kill nematodes, tiny pests that attack plant roots and cause extensive crop damage globally. Syngenta, based in Switzerland, recently purchased Pasteuria.
Another company that started at the incubator, Applied Genetic Technologies Corp., recently secured $37.5 million in new venture capital funding. The company is developing potential cures for rare diseases.
NBIA estimates that in 2011 business incubators in North American assisted about 49,000 start-up companies that provided nearly 200,000 jobs and generated annual revenue of almost $15 billion.
