The South Dakota Technology Business Center helped pull things together for PhotoBioMed, a bio-tech company that is a partnership among Avera Research Institute, USD and SDSU. The company’s researchers were working in locations in Sioux Falls, Brookings and Vermillion and the quick, down-the-hall sharing of information that could make a difference to these scientists was missing.

“Being in this facility has localized our team,” said Kaia Koster, PhotoBioMed director of life sciences. “Research advances faster when communication is better, and the Technology Business Center gives us the chance to work together as a group.”

The company has physically occupied lab and office space at SDTBC since November, but were “virtual tenants” before that, using support services and meeting rooms as needed. Now four labs are used by a science staff of ten, with additional graduate students still doing research at SDSU in Brookings.

“The move to market takes a new perspective,” Koster said. “Moving our research from a strict educational environment to a business environment helps us to think and work as a corporate entity.”

With new financial partners on board and bio-medical product lines nearing the testing phase, PhotoBioMed is poised to become one of Sioux Falls’ and South Dakota’s first home-grown bio-tech success stories.

And the company’s tenure at the Technology Business Center will be one of reasons for that success—fulfilling the purpose for which the business incubator was built.

Sioux Falls Development Foundation
Directions
Published: Jan./Feb. 2007