JA: I’d like to bring on our first guest for today. I had the pleasure of having met Kyle Kaniecki, Vice President of Life Sciences and Healthcare at the NYC EDC, really long-term partners of HITLAB and one of the reasons why we have our Breakthrough Alliance Membership initiative, which we’ll go into later on during the symposium today. But we’d like to bring Kyle on today, who’s going to be talking about supporting continued and equitable growth of the New York City life sciences ecosystem of course. Kyle, are you there?

KK: Yes, I am. Thank you.

JA: Hi, Kyle. Great to see you again. And I’m sure if the audience wasn’t able to connect with you at the summit last month, they’d love to hear a bit of a brief background about yourself and what you’ve been doing.

KK: Sure, thank you for the question and for having me on. I’m very excited to actually be speaking here today on such an important topic. So as I said, my name is Kyle Kaniecki, and I’m Vice President of Life Sciences and Healthcare here at New York City Economic Development Corporation. We like to say that we are the city’s primary engine for economic growth and development here in the five boroughs. My background, I’m actually a scientist by training. I have a Master’s in Drug Discovery from Johns Hopkins, a PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and after that I actually spent many years in the tech transfer at Columbia Technology Ventures and then was an entrepreneur for several years. And so I’m taking the experience that I have from very early stage, academic research, drug discovery the commercialization and transfer of technology and trying to apply it actually at a like a 50,000 foot view to help grow the city’s life sciences ecosystem.

JA: No, that’s really, really wonderful. And there is hundreds of different startups and founders who are definitely benefiting from what you guys are doing. And we’d love to hear about how we can bring life sciences and tech together right now, whether it is in New York, obviously primarily in New York because that’s where you guys focus, but just in general how are we able to bring life sciences and tech together to create a more equitable community and ecosystem from the work that you’re doing from your experience.

KK: Sure, so it’s a great question. I think that we’re really on the precipice of a revolution when it comes to life sciences, drug discovery, development, clinical trials, community health. All of these things will probably rapidly change with the integration of AI, ML, and tech in general. And looking at New York City’s strengths in particular, I think that the next wave of tech discovery, entrepreneurship, job growth is really happening here in New York. So whether you’re a leading tech company or a growing startup, an individual who’s looking to launch a career in the field, the growing tech ecosystem really makes New York City an ideal location to thrive, innovate, and grow. But really combining our strength as the number two global tech hub in the world with our public investments, $1.1 billion into the life sciences, New York City is really poised to become the leading market for AI-powered drug discovery. And so as a catalytic partner that is supporting growing life sciences community in the New York City area, the EDC is fully embracing AI, deep tech solutions, and others, really to drive the innovation in the drug discovery pipeline. And so through that $1 billion initiative that I mentioned, the City of New York is really encouraging development of advanced infrastructure and talent through direct funding, tax incentives, and really facilitating partnerships. And so I think a great example of this actually is we recently awarded $15 million to the City College of New York to be able to create the City Innovations Collaborative, an incubator that’s supporting commercial and academic life sciences innovation and research all under one roof at the Tasty Lab Science Building in West Harlem’s Manhattanville Factory District. So the incubator will be 36,000 square feet and will have elements of wet lab, dry lab, and company startup so that you can actually really physically integrate these two communities of life sciences and tech workers. And it’s going to be surrounded by a community that has historically been underserved. So beyond that investment, we’ve also made other investments that will ensure that New York City will continue to be actually at the forefront of innovation and integrating these two rapidly growing sub- sectors, really leveraging the respective strength of life sciences and tech and capitalizing on that potential revolution that AI/ML will really have on the system. And I think that actually in the future, a critical effort for this, from EDC and other city partners, other private partners will really be to break down the silos between these two workforces. Life sciences speak one single language, whereas tech generally speaks another one. And there historically hasn’t been a whole lot of connection between the two outside of very specific programming. And so being able to teach the language of biology and drug discovery to tech workers and vice versa will, I think, be one of the critical steps that we can take to actually see this happening. So we also have seen other institutions beyond our own efforts taking advantage of the moment of AI plus drug discovery. So as a couple of examples, I know that Mount Sinai has established the first ever Department of AI and Human Health in the country. And also a team led by Columbia recently received funding from the NSF to create the AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence. It’s going to be an interdisciplinary effort to revolutionize really our understanding of the brain and transform how we can identify, treat new treatments for neurological pathologies. We’re also seeing partnerships that are occurring that are going to bring therapeutics and tech companies together. So for example, Pfizer and Schrodinger that are both based here in New York City, recently announced a partnership with Google Cloud to be able to accelerate their target and lead identification. And so really, AI is becoming an interdisciplinary tool in the R&D toolbox and we’re optimistic, I would say, that clinical trial timelines, costs, and access to these benefits will really come from the integration of these two technologies.

JA: That’s really awesome with all those different examples that you gave about what you guys are doing at the NYC EDC. You’re currently, sort of – what you’re doing to make sure that the ecosystem is not only becoming stronger but also more equitable as well. In terms of the folks that you are working with, just as sort of an a side, Kyle, can you tell the audience sort of – like, are there specific levels of startups that you are currently working with? Are there any that you are that you are looking to work with specifically or are you sort of casting the net wide, if you like

KK: I would say that we are casting the net pretty wide. So EDC is a rather large organization. We have over 500 employees here that are working to make New York City the place to be for all innovation. And so from the earliest stages, like coming out of the labs of some of the most world-renowned institutions that are based here in New York City, as well as far-flung places across the world, not even just regionally but really globally, we’re seeing interest in expansion, those academic pipelines here into New York City. So the earliest stages innovations can actually translate into something with commercial potential as that could create good jobs as well as new therapies. So we work with those earliest stage innovations as they’re coming out of the university when they’re trying to find the first funding round. We work a lot with venture capital firms to be able to connect them with the various partners that they’re looking for. And then also once they find a foothold, if they find investment, there’s a lot of incubators we have now over 10 incubators that are online, a lot of them were supported by EDC to help those early stage companies all the way to growth and expansion. We’re seeing a lot of companies that are starting – that were started off in an incubator, starting to succeed and actually taking on more space in various clusters around the city. All the way to those large industry partners and helping them form collaborations with some of the startups, some of the venture capital with the public sector. So we do cast a broad net, we try and use our resources as equitably and responsibly as possible. And, so like it really requires us to actually look at the full pipeline.

JA: That that totally makes sense. And to that point of sort of casting that net wide, we’d love to hear more of sort of the grassroots stuff that you’re doing in terms of what the EDC is doing with building or helping to build stronger neighborhoods and creating better jobs in maybe specific locations, and maybe other examples of what you guys are doing in terms of investment and stuff to grow the city in the life sciences ecosystem?

KK: Sure. So, building strong neighborhoods is in our mission. That is really what we want to be able to do with our initiatives and our investments. And really it’s just to be in an inclusive and equitable manner so that we have this vibrant future for all New Yorkers. And so I think a non-life science example of this was the city’s recent investment in the Broadway Junction. Obviously, transportation is really important and so we invested over $95 million in the public realm to be able to create new open spaces, a new major gateway and plaza to Broadway Junction station and really improving the streetscape and making safer connections to transit. So, that’s something an example of something that we do outside of life sciences. But for life sci specifically, I would say through our $1 billion initiative, we’re on track to be able to create 40,000 jobs. We’re looking to unlock 10 million square feet of wet and dry lab real estate in all the boroughs, as long as they are concentrating in a cluster, but really generating about $82 billion in overall economic impact over the next 10 to 15 years. So, if you look at life sciences specifically, it really generally thrives in clusters. And so some of the earlier clusters have popped up around the major academic institutions. But they’re growing, they’re going elsewhere. It started really in Manhattan, I would say, but now we’re starting to see clusters in places like Morris Park up in the Bronx, a neighborhood that might have been historically overlooked, as well as the Brooklyn Waterfront. So new companies, initiatives, infrastructure are going into places like the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Army Terminal as well.

JA: No, that’s really, really wonderful, Kyle. I mean, it’s really, really great examples and really solid real world examples of what you guys are really doing to really not only just help the ecosystem as itself, but help like actual individual founders and CEOs and technologies really get to the hands of the end users, of course.

KK: Sure. Actually, I also want to just mention that we’re doing even things earlier than the company startups. So we’re trying to bring awareness that with our public investment, we want all the New Yorkers to be able to [Technical Issue]. And so we recently awarded $700,000 to BioBus over the next three years that will deliver STEM education. Like it’s a lab actually in a bus. It’s a really cool program. And it’s going to bring STEM education and hands-on lab experience to over 12,000 kids through 12 students in the Bronx. We are also creating the Spark Kipps Bay, which is really going to solidify that neighborhood as a center for gravity alongside Alexandria and 455 First Avenue. And that’s a really exciting initiative that we’re really looking forward to. We’re collaborating really closely with the state and with other agencies. It’s a huge group effort with community boards, with city councilors, but it’s really going to be a transformative project.

JA: No, that’s really, really fantastic, Kyle. Thanks so much for informing the audience about what you’re doing. Hopefully, the startups that are on here and the founders that are on here that are listening about all the amazing things that you folks are doing at the EDC -so that they can get involved, if you want to connect with Kyle, please do check out his LinkedIn. It is in the chat. There is also information about the EDC. So if you are in New York City and you are a founder and you are looking to get involved in some of these initiatives that Kyle is talking about, or if you’re just curious about some of the some of the great work that Kyle has mentioned that the EDC is doing in the Bronx and in Manhattan and so forth. Please do reach out to and please check out the EDC and see where you can get involved or lend support if you can. And Kyle, we thank you so much for giving your time up to come on and speak to the audience at the symposium. And thanks so much for the work that you guys are doing at the EDC.

KK: Absolutely. It’s a pleasure. Thank you for having me and also HITLAB, you’ve been wonderful partners as well so happy to work together on these initiatives