Colorado’s newest startup incubator recently opened its doors on the campus of the state’s oldest public institution of higher learning.
Fitzsimons Innovation Community Creates a Hub for Healthcare Tech
John Himes
August 15, 2024
Imagine a place where a physician can see patients in the morning, teach a class in the afternoon, go to the lab to check in on their research, then finish their day at their startup’s office—all without ever having to get in the car.
That’s exactly what’s happening at Fitzsimons Innovation Community in Aurora, Colorado.
This 184-acre campus is directly across the street from the University of Colorado (CU) Anschutz, a premier academic medical campus. Fitzsimons is home to 80+ health science startup companies, bringing together technologists and healthcare providers in an environment that supports collaboration and innovation.
The numbers speak for themselves. Member companies brought at least 16 innovations to market in 2023. In that same year, 75% of the companies operating out of Fitzsimons made news with major breakthrough discoveries and were able to scale out thanks to over $116M in capital raised that year.
While all these companies focus on life sciences, there’s a wide variety of innovations coming out of Fitzsimons. GelSana’s biopolymer is poised to disrupt the Band-Aid. EnteroTrack’s pain- and risk-free string test is minimally invase, ushering in a new era of gastrointestinal sampling. Lohocla Research Corporation is developing medicine to treat chronic pain and addiction.
At Fitzsimons, these entrepreneurs can live, work, and play in a community that’s built for them. In addition to the lab space, three hospitals, and six professional schools, including the CU School of Medicine, members get access to facilities and infrastructure that focus on the whole person: residential space, coffee shops, a central green, a hotel, and retailers—including a specialty scrub store. These amenities attract and retain world-class health innovators.
What really makes Fitzsimons special, though, is how it embodies the culture of our state’s unique tech ecosystem. Steve VanNurden, President and CEO at Fitzsimons, calls this “the innovation spirit and the willingness to collaborate.” Colorado’s collaborative culture, he explains, is at the heart of what makes Fitzsimons a great place for developing innovative medical breakthroughs.
Disciplined innovation through integration and collaboration
At Fitzsimons, innovation doesn’t just happen for its own sake. It’s not just about beating the competition to market or capturing market share. There’s a real sense of urgency, explains VanNurden, because “there are patients out there today that need us. They may not have tomorrow.”
To support this mission, Fitzsimons centers their organizational culture in innovation and collaboration. “Innovation really happens in the hallways,” says VanNurden. By integrating everything the ecosystem needs into a single campus—from researchers to physicians to biostatisticians to investors and more—Fitzsimons creates a physical place where people can come together to develop new medical technologies.
But it’s also not as simple as putting people together in a building and telling them to have at it. It doesn’t happen by accident, and it’s not something you can ask people to do in their off hours. At Fitzsimons, innovation is ingrained in day-to-day life. It’s a disciplined practice that’s instilled in the culture.
Collaborative innovation in action
So what does all of this look like in practice?
“As part of our Phase I trials for our two lead molecules, we must analyze blood samples taken from study participants,” says Dr. Boris Tabakoff, Founder and CEO of Lohocla. “We found a company with excellent qualifications to perform the necessary pharmacokinetic analyses for us in the same building, one floor below our suite.”
This is just one of many examples of how individual companies are able to tap into the wide range of specialized skill sets available to them at Fitzsimons.
Another success story that VanNurden points to is the shingles vaccine, Shingrix. It was developed by scientists at CU Anschutz, and it went all the way from the lab to clinical trials there. Once they were ready to commercialize it, they moved operations across the street to Fitzsimons, where a private company brought it to market. Now, in addition to saving lives, the vaccine also generates royalties for the organization’s investment arm, which they then reinvest into new technologies.
For VanNurden, this breakthrough isn’t just about business or technology. It’s also personal. “My mom got shingles, and it was awful,” he recounted. “I really believe it shortened her lifespan. Shingrix was not available at that time, but if it was it probably would have changed her life. That’s what we want to see on this campus.”
Everything at Fitzsimons takes place within this context. So when we talk about big data or AI, when we look at cell and gene therapy, or even cutting-edge initiatives like using quantum computing for personalized medicine, it’s always rooted in the mission to heal human beings.
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The Fitzsimons story: From army hospital to startup incubator
In 1919, the Fitzsimons Army Hospital became a high-altitude haven for soldiers returning from WWI with tuberculosis, or with respiratory issues due to mustard gas exposure. So when the army began the process of decommissioning old army bases during the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program, local officials tapped into that heritage of care and decided to move the medical center, which was then downtown, to its current, larger location at CU Anschutz.
The developers split the property down the middle. One side became home to CU Anschutz, three hospitals, six schools, and over $700M in clinical research. The other side became Fitzsimons Innovation Community.
For his part, VanNurden joined Fitzsimons in 2011 after leaving a position as Chair of Mayo Clinic Ventures. “It was the same concept that we’re doing here of, How do you take ideas and inventions and new ways to treat patients, and how do you bring those to the marketplace?” he explains. Now he is the president and CEO of Fitzsimons Innovation Community, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Biotechnology at the university across the street, and also a general partner of CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, a venture fund.
“The reason I wear these three hats is because I wanted to take one square mile and build an innovation ecosystem,” says VanNurden.
Now Fitzsimons provides a wealth of resources to life sciences startups. In addition to lab spaces, social events, and a bench of trusted service providers, they also provide something even more important. It’s in the name: community.
Getting the opportunity to “learn from each other, CEO to CEO,” explains VanNurden, is the greatest resource that Fitzsimons Innovation Community has to offer. This provides camaraderie for individuals going through the ups and downs of their entrepreneurial journeys, and it gives newer business people—many of whom come from scientific, academic, or clinical backgrounds—access to valuable mentorship that helps them avoid pitfalls and increases their chances of success.
Looking down the road at Fitzsimons’ Master Plan, the community has even bigger ambitions for supporting a holistic system. “The university is key, but you also need the elements that make it home, like modern residential space, coffee shops, and retail—elements that help people live instead of just work,” says Kathleen Fogler, the lead architect for the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus expansion plans. “One of the shifts is to make more room for supporting amenities, because we’ve learned these are the things that attract world-class businesses and innovators.”
The plan includes everything from public transit access to sustainable water management to high-quality primary education for the families who live and work there. VanNurden and his team believe that, with the right growth strategy, they can make Colorado an even bigger player in life sciences tech than Boston or San Francisco.
Colorado is the place for life sciences innovation
Fitzsimons Innovation Community is emblematic of Colorado’s cooperative tech ecosystem, and it operates within the context of that ecosystem.
There are many reasons why both Fitzsimons and Colorado at large are ideal places for building a tech startup. The talent pool, the lifestyle, the convenient time zone and location, and the extensive support network are all helping make our state an international hub for life sciences companies.
The universities are a big part of this equation. Of course there’s CU Anschutz, but the rest of the CU system—including the AB Nexus collaboration with CU Boulder—also plays a role.
VanNurden also points to Colorado State University (CSU) and Colorado School of Mines (Mines). “Especially in medicine now, physicians need to work with engineers, who need to work with biostatisticians,” he says of the role Mines plays in the ecosystem. “There’s a lot of things that Mines can do that relate to healthcare.”
The list of organizations that support Fitzsimons and their startups goes on. The Colorado BioScience Association (CBSA) is a nonprofit that promotes industry growth. Colorado Hub for Health Impact is a national campaign that’s pushing for greater national recognition of Colorado’s booming life sciences ecosystem that has raised over a billion dollars a year for the last seven years. SPARK Colorado is a tech transfer program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that provides mentorship and financing.
The reality is that none of this can happen without funding. Thankfully, Colorado’s entrepreneurs now have greater access to capital than ever before. Thanks to venture firms like Buff Gold Ventures and Boulder Ventures, which have partnered with VanNurden and the CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, as well as public grants like the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) Advanced Industries awards, early-stage companies at Fitzsimons can get the financing they need to grow and scale.
“Fitzsimons is an amazing place that looks way different than when I came here 13 years ago, and 13 years from now it will be even more different,” concludes VanNurden. “It will benefit all of us by improving the health of people in Colorado and beyond.”
About the Colorado Tech Spotlight
The Colorado Tech Spotlight highlights local innovations and the stories behind them. The series explores how the Colorado tech ecosystem creates an environment that promotes technological progress.
It is produced by Dynamic Tech Media and written by John Himes. Photography by Kort Duce.
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