Photo courtesy of the Mass. Life Sciences Center
Dr. Kirk Taylor
CEO, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Industry experience: 28 years
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center was created in 2006 to give state government a role in maintaining and expanding the Bay State’s critical industry cluster. The organization’s role in awarding state grants, loans and tax credits to local companies is taking on added importance amid the recent declines in venture capital investment and federal funding. Gov. Maura Healey named Dr. Kirk Taylor to lead the MLSC in October 2024, just weeks before the state Legislature authorized $500 million in spending for the state’s life science sector over the next 10 years. Taylor previously held executive roles at Pfizer, Sanofi, Biogen, EMD Serono, Finch Therapeutics and Verastem Oncology, and was chief medical officer at Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics at the time of his MLSC appointment.
Q: What was your niche during your career in the private side of the life sciences industry?
A: I’m a neurologist by training. I had 29 years in the industry, working in large, medium and small pharma, some biotech, small companies and startups. It’s a tremendous experience. This is kind of like my third career. Everything I learned in the past has helped me for today, especially the neurology. There’s so much growth and development in neurology right now in the biotech sector, but also in the other therapeutic areas. And leading teams around the world and nationally, that has helped me come to Massachusetts and lead MLSC and some incredible programs.
Q: What are your top goals for the organization?
A: The goals are clear, yet flexible, because we have such a fluid ecosystem right now, given the pressures from D.C. and just around the world in biotech in general. We have to flex to our ecosystem. We asked our stakeholders what they needed. But basically, [our goals are to] maintain MLSC as the number-one life science hub in the country with global impact, expand access and health equity across Massachusetts. That’s one of our core values: to build a future-ready and diverse workforce. We have programs that go all the way from kindergarten up to the startup world and then, of course, drive strategic and public-private partnerships in responsible ways in the commonwealth, and also with companies that want to come into the commonwealth.
Q: What was the impetus for the creation of the 2035 Fund?
A: One of our big swings or large impact long range comes from the pressures we’re seeing out of Washington, but also the VC funding, philanthropy, the concerns with what would be approved and what wouldn’t be approved, with the FDA changes. We wanted to create programs where we would work with our ecosystem over a number of years and have immediate impact, but even more long-range impact.
Q: What is the outlook for, and current barriers to biomanufacturing expansion in Massachusetts?
A: Biomanufacturing is of huge importance in Massachusetts, and we do have some companies that go all the way from the manufacturing to the launch and into the commercialization right here. And we’re making more noise around that. One of the ways we’re helping is this new program, Bio Boost, which has two components: the med-tech as well as the biomanufacturing. And this would be large funds, [with] capital dollars as well as breakthrough dollars. The capital dollars would go towards a developer coming in and building a whole new lab, helping them start with the infrastructure. And of course, they would kick in dollars as well. So it’d be a private-public partnership.
And then we would have breakthrough dollars, a smaller amount, where if a real estate developer wanted to come in and do a proposal, see if it’s even possible, we would help defray the costs up front, get them interested and help them look at the project and possibilities. Again, we’re very excited about that program. We just launched it a few days ago, and we’re already getting very good uptake. Now, we do have some dollars.
I don’t want to release the number just yet, because we’re still waiting for some of the approvals. All this is state funding. And there are three buckets. One is bond dollars, one is capital dollars, for infrastructure and equipment and solid materials, and the third being for operating expenses, professional development, things like that. And that comes from the Legislature.
Q: How does the governor’s new DRIVE [Discovery, Research and Innovation for a Vibrant Economy] Initiative address the industry’s current needs?
A: Oh, boy. In terms of DRIVE, the main goal is to create jobs and retain and develop talent right here in Massachusetts. The governor and [Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll] have put a huge initiative out for $200 million each in two separate funds to drive this initiative. It’s bringing the brain power in Massachusetts, which is number one in education, to develop ideas on what we need for higher education, workforce development and research resilience. Things like postdocs. We know postdoctorate positions have been eliminated or decreased in number a great deal, but especially in Massachusetts given the number we have here. How can we protect these people? How can we continue the research? How can we make sure the talent and the new product innovation that we stand on in Massachusetts continues? That’s what DRIVE is all about.
Q: What are Massachusetts’ unique obstacles compared with competing industry clusters?
A: Massachusetts is number one in health care, number one in education, number one in quality of life. One of the advantages we have compared to other states is we have a tremendous talent pool here. Students come into Massachusetts every year to learn, and one of our goals is to not only train them, but to keep them, and keep them in proximity to one another. The collaboration we have is our secret sauce to maintain our excellence. The health care system, topping the world with innovation and academic research, partnering with industry to make new drugs happen. Then of course, agencies like the MLSC: That’s the differentiation factor that’s very unique, using public-private funding to drive innovation but also drive investment.
Q: How can the MLSC optimize its investments to help the industry amid the declines in federal and venture capital funding?
A: We always ask our ecosystem, which is what we did in our third authorization of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center initiative. What do you need? We don’t work in a vacuum. We’re able to offer programs that are sometimes oversubscribed and are in desperate need for help with funding, and also, link that public and private dollars connection to be successful. That particular [dollar] number is still being decided on by the Legislature, so I don’t have the exact number today. But the Mass Leads Act was signed by the governor in November 2024, and that committed over a billion dollars over 10 years to support the life sciences. Investment in life sciences is alive and well in Massachusetts.
Taylor’s Five Favorite Piano Concertos:
- Brahms’ No. 2
- Prokofiev’s No. 3
- Rachmaninov’s No. 2
- Beethoven’s No. 4
- Mozart’s No. 23
