Dallas lands $2.5B biotech research agency

Dallas will be home to a $2.5 billion federal biotech research agency, further solidifying North Texas as one of the nation’s premier life science hubs. 

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H, has committed to the 26-acre Pegasus Park as one of its three headquarters locations, following months of campaigning from Texas cities, universities and science advocates, the Dallas Morning News reported. 

While Pegasus Park — located across Stemmons Freeway from the Dallas Medical District — will serve as the headquarters’ physical site, the agency’s operations will span statewide.
South Carolina-based Advanced Technology International will manage the rest of the consortium in Austin, San Antonio and Houston.

“One of the things that the Dallas group was really able to show was that they were able to bring communities from all over the state and the country together,” Craig Gravitz, director of ARPA-H’s Project Accelerator Transition Innovation Office, told the outlet. “And we saw firsthand that it wasn’t just these big cities, but small communities as well, and that was such an important signal for us that the group that was in front of us really had that convening power that we were looking for.”

The agency has also launched ARPANET-H,  a “hub and spoke” model that will create a network across the country. Becoming a spoke site costs nothing for partners,  which can be hospitals, health systems or universities. The agency will launch a website Wednesday to accept spoke-stie applications.

ARPA-H’s commitment to Dallas is a huge boost to the region and state’s reputation as one of the nation’s leaders in biotech research and innovation. DFW’s life sciences labor pool has increased by 17 percent since 2019, the outlet reported, citing data from CBRE. UT Southwestern in Dallas and the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth serve as the region’s anchor institutions.

Other notable projects in the pipeline include Texas A&M University System’s three-building research campus in southeast Fort Worth, which is expected to be completed by 2027. 

As part of a proposed $3 billion renovation and expansion of the Campus at Legacy in Plano, NexPoint Real Estate plans to develop over 4 million square feet of lab, office and therapeutic production space. 

—Quinn Donoghue

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