Senator Vince Leach took part in a groundbreaking ceremony last week for a major bioscience incubator. The joint project of the University of Arizona Center for Innovation and Oro Valley Innovation Labs will provide space for life science businesses to conduct research and product development.

The university expects 4,000 square feet of office and lab space to be developed. The life science incubator will be built near the Ventana Roche Tissue Diagnostics headquarters in Innovation Park.

"It's an honor to be a part of the groundbreaking, and I'm thrilled the incubator will be built in Legislative District 11," said Senator Leach. "The town of Oro Valley has done an outstanding job building a bioindustry cluster, and this project will be a major addition to it."

The university says the new facility will fill a gap related to supporting scientific research discoveries and translating them into marketable technologies.

“When we do translate fundamental discoveries into new commercializable products, we have to bring that out of the University, and we have to have a place for them to live," said University of Arizona President Dr. Robert C. Robbins. "They have to have a space for their company to grow and this will be one of those spaces. And we’ll be surrounded by other like-minded individuals that will continue to help this community grow and this network prosper.”

The bioscience incubator is expected to open in the Summer of 2020.