September marks the final month of our fiscal year, and in typical Tampa Bay EDC style, it was filled with activities that propelled us to a strong finish for FY2024.
Together with our partners in Global Tampa Bay, we traveled to Vancouver with our Chair, Tampa International Airport CEO Joe Lopano, as well as City of Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and elected officials and business leaders from Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties. What a great way to cap off the 10-year anniversary celebration of our tri-county global trade and investment partnership. I invite you to read more about it in this feature.
While half of our team was in Canada, the other half was busy supporting our Director of Life Sciences and Health Care, Jennifer Burrington, as she led a delegation of 23 life sciences companies from the United Kingdom on a two-day whirlwind tour of Tampa with leaders from our life sciences, hospital, technology, university, and entrepreneurial support ecosystems. The busy itinerary included a company pitch night at the University of Tampa, where leaders from the visiting UK companies shared with our Investors and other community leaders what they needed to help them establish operations in Florida. Other highlights included tours of CAMLS and the USF Research Park, as well as a reception and fireside chat featuring His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for North America, Niall Mackenzie, Tampa General Hospital CEO John Couris, and Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration Secretary Jason Weida, among others. You can read more about this highly successful inbound mission here and here.
Later that same week, we joined our partners at Tampa General Hospital at the Hotel Haya for the official launch of the new Tampa Medical & Research District (TMRD) brand and web site. The event featured a fireside chat with our FY2025 Chair, Ron Christaldi of Shumaker, along with TGH’s John Couris and Dr. Mark Moseley, USF Health’s chief clinical officer and president of USF Tampa General Physicians. The Tampa Bay Business Journal’s Alexis Muellner moderated the conversation about how far the Tampa Bay region has come in cultivating its health care and life sciences industries over the past 20 years, how to build on our strengths, what the future looks like for life sciences sector, and the vision for the TMRD.
The new TMRD website, tmrdfl.org, is designed to be a comprehensive resource for medical professionals, researchers, and business leaders looking to be a part of Tampa’s burgeoning health and medical technology ecosystem. It highlights the cutting-edge academic research, clinical trials, and collaborations that are shaping the future of healthcare in Tampa and making the TMRD a prime destination for life sciences companies and innovators.
The collaborative leadership across our healthcare industry and local government has positioned Tampa to be a powerhouse in life sciences, and now is the time for local health systems and innovators to engage with the TMRD and get involved. We’ve laid the foundation for Tampa to become a top U.S. destination for biotech and life sciences in the coming decade – and we’re about to have many more wildly busy months like the one we just had.
I hope to see all of you at our Annual Meeting on October 23rd at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Thank you all so much for your unwavering support over the past 15 years. We would not have achieved all that we have as a region without you.
Craig
