Gov. Gregoire addresses the fourth annual Life Sciences Summit

September 22, 2008

AS WRITTEN

Good Morning, and thank you Jack Faris for the kind introduction.

By the way, Jack, I know you think you are retiring, but you can just forget about that! We need you. We need your vision and insight!

Seriously Jack, thank you for all the help you�ve given me and all you�ve done for the life sciences in Washington over the years.

Jack and I have worked together on every Life Science Summit these past four years. What you may not have heard is that I quoted Jack in my State of the State address last January.

We�ll miss Jack not just because of his vision but because of his way with words, and his ability to capture and harness the spirit of this industry in very grounded ways.


Congratulations, Jack, on a terrific tenure as W-B-B-A president.

I�m excited to be here for the fourth annual summit � It�s a busy time for me but I wasn�t about to miss the opportunity to welcome you all, and just in case you don�t already know it�

I wanted to be sure and let you those of you from out-of-state that you�re now at the epicenter of life-sciences innovation.

It is tempting to start off by talking about what we have accomplished in the last four years�

�From the establishment of the Life Sciences Discovery Fund to the creation of a Global Health Department at the University of Washington to the medical innovations and successes of many of the companies in this room today.

But I want to take this opportunity to look forward�to get out my binoculars and focus in on a future I am convinced we are creating together.

Imagine if you will what the Governor's Life Science Summit of 2015 will be occupied with as we continue on the remarkable path we�re on right now!

The future is unwritten, obviously, but we have unleashed forces that offer Washington and the world the distinct potential to change the lives of countless generations.

Looking back from the Year 2015, I will not be surprised to see that our Life Science Discovery Fund award winners in children's diabetes�

�health information technology�and cardiac bio-markers -- to name just a few -- are bringing their breakthroughs to market, saving countless families the pain of childhood illness�

�And giving humans longer, better lives, while saving all of us millions of dollars in inaccurate or unnecessary diagnoses.

Looking back from 2015, I�d hope to see Lee Hood and the folks at Accelerator announcing their 25th new start-up company in the region.

Looking back, I can imagine us seeing that the class of 2014 left high school with the best math- and science-test scores in the country.

And along with that, we�ll see the valedictorian of Walla Walla High School or a high school near you thanking the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association for the scholarship she won for her senior project on new forms of pancreatic cancer treatment.

I can dream of the Washington Vaccine Alliance announcing their fifth major project together�

�Joining with three international partners to deliver seven new, safe vaccines that can prevent and cure disease in some of the poorest, most remote parts of the globe and save the lives of, literally, millions of people.

I might look back from 2015 and picture something well within the realm of possible.

And that would be that The University of Washington and Washington State University�PATH�the Gates Foundation� and the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute have chalked up the impact of their work in 10 countries�

�Discovering that they have saved millions of lives and reduced the health care burden on partner nations by billions of dollars while improving literacy scores by 20 percent because kids are ready to learn.

I look back from 2015 and envision that the Medical Devices Innovation Partnership Zone in Bothell -- now home to 5,000 students, engineers, and scientists in 600 businesses � has completed its new joint facility with the University of Washington -- housing state-of-the-art fabrication facilities for prototype development.

Meanwhile, just maybe in 2015 Ekos Corporation announces its 20-year anniversary and its latest Intelligent Drug Delivery Catheter. The press event includes the 2 millionth patient whose life was saved by their technology.

I can certainly imagine that the 2015 Bio conference comes to Washington. They'd be crazy not to. And the event is abuzz with the results of the Washington - Queensland collaboration around animal disease vectors and human health.

It�s also easy to imagine that in Spokane, the Health Sciences and Services Authority, in partnership with the Spokane Innovation Partnership Zone, could announce they just won the National Science Foundation grant competition for outstanding innovations in strategies for clinical trials.

And in the same month, Signature Genomics hires its 1000th employee and opens another overseas office to handle international sales.

In short, looking back from the Year 2015, I believe we will see that the hard work we did in the first decade of the new century has borne the fruit of a new age.

All across Washington I expect that we will have a huge and thriving life-sciences sector as visible as Boeing and Microsoft�

�A sector that inspires students to achieve, provides our economy with many more thousands of good-paying, rewarding careers, and delivers ground-breaking health care all over the world.

And I can imagine that in Guyana, a child is born into a family free at last of the scourge of malaria, of terrible early childhood illnesses�

�A child who, many years later, will win the Nobel Prize for Medicine, which will inspire a student in Vancouver, Washington�

�Completing a circle of invisible, powerful connections between this great state, your great work, and a better future for the world.

In the end�who knows what our innovative, thriving life-sciences culture will have achieved 7, 10, 20 years from now?

Who knows if we will, if fact, achieve all that I envisioned today?

But more importantly, who can say that we won�t achieve much, much more?

Let�s keep dreaming big, folks, and, so too, let�s keep doing what you all do so well � working hard to make the dreams real.

Thank you, and let�s have a great summit.