U-M transforms old Pfizer site into 174-acre research incubator

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 | Source: Detroit Free Press

Where there are challenges there is opportunity. This is an apt description for the University of Michigan's approach to the former Pfizer campus on the northeast side of Ann Arbor. Incubating numerous new life science companies there has the potential to become a bigger economic engine than Pfizer ever was.

Excerpt:

More than three years after Pfizer announced the closing of its massive pharmaceutical research campus in Ann Arbor, the 174-acre property is springing back to life, with grand ambitions for boosting southeast Michigan's economy.

The University of Michigan is in the midst of transforming the land and its 28 buildings into a next-generation research hub where scientists, engineers and others will work closely with local businesses.

Start-ups spun off from this kind of collaborative research will be located at a new business accelerator that is to help them grow.

And in a first for the university, established, for-profit companies will be allowed to move into the facilities.

"The North Campus Research Complex represents an opportunity to do something different," said David Canter, the campus' executive director. "Just filling up space is not the mission."

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