BB&T

Early this year Michigan was dealt a devastating blow when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (New York) shut down all of its facilities in the state, part of a system-wide layoff of its workforce, and leaving a variety of high-tech facilities vacant. Already struggling from a decline in the auto manufacturing industry — chronicled in one of Michael Moore's earlier documentaries, "Roger and Me" — the "Wolverine State" has been seeking initiatives not just to tread the waters of its economic doldrums but return to its previous, prosperous high-water mark.

To do so, Michigan's economic developers recently created a life preserver of sorts, targeting the life sciences, in the form of two "virtual" companies that they hope will push the development of existing med-tech and pharmacy industries throughout the state.

The Michigan Life Sciences Network (Lansing), developed in February, launched the Michigan Virtual Medical Device Company and the Michigan Virtual BioPharma Company, during the annual MichBio convention in Lansing last month.

"Our count so far is about 650 life sciences companies in Michigan]," Michael Debiak, president of Michigan Life Science Network told Biomedical Business & Technology. "Of those, maybe better than half are medical device companies." Debiak boasts that it will offer Fortune 500 Business-style marketing plans to smaller companies that couldn't normally afford such services.

The life science network said that the effort is to create a "'wiki' project in which each member adds their knowledge and understanding of their part for the benefit of the whole. Using the wisdom of the disparate Michigan companies themselves, the process will quickly create unity, new value, and knowledge of each other.

The effort was presented at MichBio by means of a chart presenting the two virtual companies in a way that is "visual and tactile" Companies attending were asked to fill in the bank boxes of the chart to identify their expertise.

The virtual companies offer the opportunity to create regional directories and communication between the life science companies in the state. Then the members of the virtual companies can receive marketing aid as help in navigating the FDA approval process, or any other questions that might come up.

"The creation of these two virtual companies is just the start for what needs to be done to stimulate life science business in Michigan," Debiak said. "The Michigan Life Science Network is developing many of the next step initiatives to bring new business into these individual companies by marketing the larger virtual organization."

Plans call for the initiative to show a quick turn-around to boost the economy quickly. "We're not worried about years" for developing a plan to stimulate the economy, Debiak said. The organization's timeline to do this is "in months."