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State Representative Joe Mullery
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4262
For more information contact: Matt Swenson 651-297-8406
COMMUNITY NOTICE
NEW STATE BIO-TECHNOLOGY COMMITMENTS
Because development and commercialization of new bio-technologies can be a huge economic engine for our state, we tried to make a large funding commitment to the emerging bio-science industries, including agriculture and industrial biotechnology, medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and human health microbiology, as well as the fast-developing field of nanotechnology (i.e., constructing things from micro-components).
Unfortunately, because of huge cuts in funding by the governor, we had to take out a lot of the funding commitments we had directed to these industries.
One of the important new law provisions was a modification of a bill that I have tried to pass for a few years. Under this new law, a beginning company can obtain a non-refundable income tax credit equal to 25 percent of an investment in a business venture related to biotechnology and medical devices. The business venture must have fewer than 25 employees and the maximum credit is $25,000 for an individual and $300,000 for a pass-through entity or C-corporation. The major difference from my bill is that this restricts it to just biotechnology where my bill extended it to beginning manufacturing companies in various new technologies. I researched this issue for years and found that the best use of research and development tax credits was for start-up companies because it comes at a time when they are very short on capital and need the money to get their business going, and it is important to those companies in deciding what state to start in because investment money is so important to them at the time of start-up. In the past, I could not get my bill heard because the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives and they wanted to reward their friends, the very large corporations such as IBM, 3M, etc., by directing the tax credits almost entirely to large corporations. Our research indicated that the state really didn’t get anything in return for helping the large corporations because it wouldn’t affect their decision of which state to be in to conduct their work - other factors were far more important to them. By getting new small corporations to start in this state on new technologies, we have the ability to expand the economy with good-paying jobs.
We also set up a new University of Minnesota Science and Engineering initiative to keep the University competitive in research and technology by creating a new medical device resource center, developing applications in the areas of nanotechnology, and driving the development of cross-disciplinary research in science and engineering.
Another aspect of the University provisions was to advance research on developing bio-fields.
The University’s partnership with Mayo Clinic in the area of development of medical genomics was also increased.
We also initiated a new endeavor to coordinate public and private efforts to secure federal funding for research and development by small businesses, to assess the possible coordination of development of small businesses, and link them with federal requests.
News Items
- Reminder: Primary - August 14; Some Voting Locations May Have Changed - (Posted: 2012-07-08 00:00:00)
- Passing of Dr. John Williams - (Posted: 2012-07-09 00:00:00)
- Rep. Mullery: 2012 Legislative Report - (Posted: 2012-07-10 00:00:00)
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