Officials: Institute good for bay area

The governor's office and the Scripps Research Institute say the campus in Palm Beach County will benefit local research efforts, but would make few promises.

TAMPA - A road show of officials from the governor's office and California's Scripps Research Institute breezed through town Wednesday, calling their plan to build a Scripps campus in Palm Beach County a win for the Tampa Bay area.

Pam Dana, director of Florida's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development, told a small audience at the University of South Florida that the biotech group's arrival would "catapult" local research efforts to a new level.

Steve Kay, a professor of cell biology at Scripps in La Jolla, predicted bay area scientists would log "a lot of frequent flier miles" traveling to and from Palm Beach County, which beat out Tampa and several other cities for the right to host the new campus.

Initial response to the $310-million proposal was enthusiastic, if cautious.

USF president Judy Genshaft said she was eager to have her faculty collaborate with Scripps but wondered about the physical distance between the two. Would Scripps operate a satellite facility in Tampa?

Bill Dalton, chief executive of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, wanted to know how quickly Scripps would set up its high-speed drug screening lab, which Moffitt would like to use to research its own drug treatments.

Rep. Leslie Waters, R-Seminole, chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee on transportation and economic development, asked how many of the 545 jobs that Scripps has promised to fill within seven years would go to Florida residents.

"Floridians, they wonder, "What's in it for me?"' Waters said.

By contrast, others at Wednesday's meeting wondered aloud whether Scripps might damage USF or Moffitt by hiring away their top faculty.

The answers were not always reassuring.

Kay told Genshaft that Scripps does not plan to build facilities outside Palm Beach County, for example, and said the distance between it and USF would be "somewhat of an issue." On the other hand, he said, scientists are used to collaborating via e-mail and telephone.

Nor will Scripps promise to hire only Florida scientists - or, conversely, promise not to hire faculty away from Florida universities. It will hire the "best and the brightest" wherever they may currently live, Kay added.

Bay area officials were not alone in their concerns about the Scripps proposal, which lawmakers will address in a special session in Tallahassee next week.

During a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, said he'd like to see Scripps give preference to job candidates from Florida and reserve a certain amount of its work for state universities. USF has no faculty collaborations with Scripps at present.

"I think if Florida has $310-million invested they ought to get some home cooking for it," he said.

The subject of accountability also came up Wednesday morning, when the Scripps road show crew met with the St. Petersburg Times editorial board.

Though the governor's office has projected that Scripps will have 2,800 Palm Beach County employees by its 15th year there, Scripps will commit only to creating 545 jobs by its seventh year. None of the growth beyond that level is guaranteed, Dana said.

Still, Moffitt's Dalton is optimistic.

In addition to expanding Florida's reputation beyond tourism and agriculture, he said, Scripps' willingness to open its drug-screening lab to other scientists will allow Moffitt to hold onto and incubate some of its patents, rather than immediately sell them to deep-pocketed pharmaceutical companies.

"The earlier you license out intellectual property, the less you get back," Dalton said. "The longer you hold it back, which means starting incubators, the more likely it stays here."

- Times reporter Alisa Ulferts contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727 893-8751.