AUGUSTA – Officials with the Life Sciences Innovation Center at the Medical College of Georgia and the Hull College of Business at Augusta State University learned recently that they have been awarded an ICAPP grant to help recruit ASU students into the burgeoning biotechnology industry.

The joint project between the two institutions will hopefully result in more science-minded graduates who can partner their business skills with a newfound knowledge of biotechnology.

Jonathan Goolsby, the Marketing Outreach Specialist for the Life Science Innovation Center (LSIC), said the market is absolutely there for soon-to-be graduates to explore.

“This will give more people the chance to come in as a business leader in one of Georgia’s strategic industries,” he said. “There is no shortage of biologists or chemists. But there is a small supply of management that is able to speak ‘biotech’ language. This grant will allow us to begin to bridge that gap.”

At the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) and the Life Science Business Development Center, they are likely to utilize 8-10 interns during the first year of the program. Goolsby said the business school at Augusta State has rapidly progressed on the national and international scene and the marriage between that strength and the booming biotechnology field in Augusta is a natural one.

The LSIC incubator is currently full with five new companies operating there. Also, the Georgia Medical Center Authority, also located in Augusta, has a larger incubator and both work closely to help newly-formed biotechnology companies advance. Several companies have approached the LSIC about locating there but there is no more room. Goolsby said 8-10 biotechnology companies have begun in Augusta in the last four years. But, as future business executives have graduated from Augusta State, the large percentage of them have left for higher-paying jobs in larger cities.

“Ninety percent of all people that attend Augusta State are from a 60-mile radius of Augusta,” said Goolsby, also an ASU alum. “This gives people a sense of hometown feeling with a high-level technical training that is really happening here.”

The grant will be used to help recruit students into the program, where each would be assigned to either one of the incubator companies or the centers themselves. The students would learn to both understand and speak the language of biotechnology by exploring the fields of the discipline and the state-of-the-art biomedical research being conducted in the bio-business incubator. The internship will register approximately 10 senior level business students for the Spring term of 2008. The teaching faculty will work with each student to make sure there is a clear understanding of their specific business partner in the incubator.

Students would also receive business instruction including writing business plans, analyzing external and internal business environments, markets and customers, the competition and key financial documents, planning a pricing strategy, resolving distribution issues and planning a communication strategy.

Each student will spend approximately 10 hours per week with an assigned bio-tech startup company located at the LSIC for six weeks. The end product typically will be a business plan that the company can use to identify sources of funding and support, as well as potential market segments.

Goolsby said he would join Dr. Charles Nawrot, the ICAAP Liaison Officer for MCG and the interim associate vice president for technology transfer and economic development, Dr. Barbara Coleman, the associate dean for the Hull College of Business at Augusta State, and Carolyn Ingraham, the Director of Continuing Education, to discuss how they want to market the program’s ideas and push the market.

“We think this is a huge win for both Augusta State and the Life Science Innovation Center,” said Goolsby. “This is a field that is growing at a rapid rate, especially here in Augusta. The students will receive valuable experience and the companies will have a business model that they would not otherwise have the time or expertise to put together.”