KALAMAZOO – The Southwest Michigan Innovation Center has announced its latest tenant ? the 15th company to occupy space at the 58,0000 square-foot wet lab facility built as an incubator/accelerator for entrepreneurial activity. This tenant company, however, was formed in the 1950s.
Kalsec, started by Kalamazoo native Paul Todd more than fifty years ago, is headquartered on Turwill Lane, off West Main Street in Kalamazoo. But as of May, they also occupy 1,000 square feet of space at the Innovation Center, located in Western Michigan University?s Business Technology and Research Park on the university?s Parkview Campus.
?It began primarily as a need for expanded facilities space,? said Don Berdahl, Kalsec vice president of research. ?But we are also very optimistic about the opportunities for new product development that may come from working in a collaborative environment with other scientists.?
Southwest Michigan First CEO, Ronald R. Kitchens, said the addition of Kalsec to the tenant mix is exactly the kind of synergy envisioned by community leaders with the construction of the facility two years ago.
?Part of our objective in establishing and supporting new life sciences companies in the greater Kalamazoo region, was to achieve just this type of relationship with existing businesses,? Kitchens said. ?For start-up companies to take root, they need to have complementary customers and suppliers close by.?
Kalsec is one of the world’s foremost developers of spice and herb extracts used as flavorings and colorings for the food industry. Their products include commonly used but little known additives that provide hop flavoring and aroma for beer, the “heat” in salsa and the yellow color in mustard.
Berdahl said that changes in the food industry may provide opportunities for future growth. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, is aggressively seeking alternatives to synthetic additives, and the spice and extracts produced at Kalsec may provide a natural solution. Although the company is not actively seeking new markets or new applications at this time, it is talking to at least two other SMIC tenant companies about supplier relationships and is exploring other possible collaborations.
?There are any number of synergies that can come from working around other scientists,? Berdahl said. ?Not the least of these is using shared equipment and learning about the latest techniques available to the scientists at the Innovation Center.?
The addition of Kalsec to the SMIC tenant list places the overall capacity at 90 percent. And according to Doug Morton, CEO for the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center, there are at least a couple of solid prospects in the tenant pipeline that may fill the Center to capacity very soon.
?We had originally projected that it would take us at least another four years to reach this point,? Morton said. ?Our next objective will be working with community leaders and graduating start-ups to identify space within the local community for graduates.?
The Southwest Michigan Innovation Center is a 58,000-square-foot incubator/accelerator designed to provide wet-lab space, access to venture funding and business services to emerging companies in biosciences and high technology.
Construction for the new facility, located at the Western Michigan University Business Technology Research Park in Kalamazoo, a state-designated SmartZone, was completed in the spring of 2003.
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