When you are reaching for a long-term, challenging but attainable goal, you need more than aspirations, you need a team and a plan.

Twenty years ago, over 100 Arizona leaders came together to develop a plan to build our bioscience sector with guidance from experts at Battelle and support from the Flinn Foundation. The result was Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap.

Today, Arizona’s bioscience sector is performing at historically high levels after the creation of the Roadmap placed the state on a long-term trajectory toward success.


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The vision for Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap is for the state to become globally competitive and a national leader in the biosciences in such fields as precision medicine, cancer, neurosciences, and bioengineering by 2025. Today, the Roadmap is guided by Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap Steering Committee, comprised of about 135 leaders from the public and private sectors in science, health care, business, academia, and policy.

The Flinn Foundation supports the Steering Committee’s efforts and commissions the collection, analysis, and public release of the performance metrics as they have done since the launch of the Roadmap.

And since the 2002 launch of Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap—the state’s long-term strategy to guide the biosciences—the increases are striking: from 73,000 to 133,000 in bioscience jobs, including hospitals; $34 million to $240 million in venture capital; $133 million to $297 million in NIH funding; and $273 million to $623 in academic R&D.

Over the last 20 years, Battle followed by TEConomy Partners has measured and reported the latest performance analysis. Reports commissioned by the Flinn Foundation and shared with the community shows the progress Arizona is making in bioscience jobs, wages, venture capital, National Institutes of Health research funding, and university research and development. The next data report is scheduled to be released in 2024.

“The evidence is strong—Arizona’s dedication to advancing the biosciences over the past 20 years has paid substantial dividends for our economy and health,” said Tammy McLeod, Ph.D., Flinn Foundation president and CEO. “We have made groundbreaking discoveries and clinical advancements at our universities, research institutes, and hospitals. We’ve launched companies, established innovation hubs, and boosted the state economy through tough periods. And there is more to come.”

Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap

Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap is a long-term strategic plan originally commissioned by the Flinn Foundation in 2002 and updated in 2014 with the goal of Arizona becoming globally competitive and a national leader in select areas of the biosciences by 2025. The Roadmap features five overarching goals, as well as strategies and potential actions, to help the state achieve this vision.

The goals include:

• Forming an entrepreneurial hub;

• Turning research into practice;

• Developing bio-talent;

• Promoting Arizona’s convergence of research, health care, and commercialization to economic partners in neighboring states, Canada, and Mexico; and

• Enhancing the state’s “collaborative gene” reputation.

Get the facts: Flinn.org/Bioscience