Might be a bonanza

Kendall Square, Cambridge, as seen from across the Charles River in Boston.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The other week I noted how Greater Boston’s  universities and associated institutions  have been crucial in enriching the region. We had another example  of their ability to spark profitable business ventures with news that the Feds are setting up an “investor catalyst” center at Kendall Square, in Cambridge. Its neighbors, of course, include Harvard and MIT. Kendall Square has become something like the world’s bio-tech capital.

The center will use basic-research findings about such tough diseases as cancers and dementias to create new technologies,  medicines  and devices, and get them in the market by working with entrepreneurs and financial organizations.

This center, part of the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will probably pump billions into the regional economy over coming years. Perhaps some Rhode Island institutions, especially Brown University and the University of Rhode Island, as well as Lifespan, Care New England and some Ocean State bio-tech businesses – established and startups -- can glom on to some of this activity.

The Worcester area will benefit — e.g., University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center, in Worcester — as will institutions farther away, such as Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, in Labanon, N.H., and Maine Medical Center, in Portland.