Murphy Endorses Biotech, BBQ, & Elicker

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy swung by Science Park to endorse a new generation of economic development — and political leadership — in a city booming with biotech business talent.

Murphy spent the afternoon at Science Park campus at the intersection of Munson Street and Winchester Avenue, first at the second-floor office and lab space of KLEO Pharmaceuticals at 25 Science Park and then at the barbecue restaurant Ricky D’s Rib Shack at 302 Winchester Ave.

Murphy made the stops alongside Democratic mayoral candidate Justin Elicker, whom he formally endorsed in the latter’s bid to unseat three-term incumbent Mayor Toni Harp in the Nov. 5 general election.

At both KLEO and Ricky D’s, Murphy praised the city’s burgeoning biotech companies, the restaurants and other services that pop up around them, and the Elicker campaign’s promotion of a generational change in the city’s political and economic leadership.

“I’m really excited about the focus that Justin has on making New Haven a place that can continue to grow its high-tech economy,” Murphy said. ​“That’s the future of New Haven. And there are more and more great places like this [Ricky D’s] if you have more businesses with good jobs.”

“Sometimes a young breath of fresh air,” he continued, ​“is what a city needs. And that’s been the heart of Justin’s campaign.”

Elicker, who won September’s Democratic primary by 16 points, will face off in November against Harp, who has formally suspended her reelection campaign but has recently started courting votes for her name on the Working Families Party line on the general election ballot (including a newly announced fundraiser in Woodbridge paid for by her campaign).

Murphy spent the first hour of his New Haven afternoon stop at a roundtable conversation with the founders, scientists, and administrators of KLEO Pharmaceuticals, a new biotech company that develops immuno-therapies that seek to trick the body’s immune system into combating evasive tumors that cause prostate cancer and multiple myeloma.

Murphy honored KLEO with his office’s Innovator of the Month award in August. Click here to read a previous story about the science and business behind KLEO’s pharmaceutical research, which CEO Doug Manion said he hopes will result in three synthetic immuno-therapy drugs in clinical testing sometime next year.

Thursday’s conversation wasn’t just about the biochemistry of KLEO’s new method of fighting cancer, but also about the merits and challenges of founding and keeping a biotech business in New Haven.

“We’re here with the next mayor,” Murphy said, knocking twice on the table before describing Justin as the presumptive victor of November’s general election. What are some of the upsides of doing biotech work in New Haven, and what can the city be doing better.

Manion said that he and fellow local startups like Biohaven Pharmaceuticals and Arvinas have decided to stay in the Elm City because ​“it’s a good place to do business and it’s a great place to raise a family.”

Being in between Boston and New York without being Boston or New York means that biotech companies have easy access to nearby investors and talent without suffering the high cost-of-living and the literal and metaphorical congestion of those bigger cities.

“We would love to see the biotech industry flourish here,” Manion said. ​“We have access to very talented people either from the area or people who moved from the West Coast because they see this as an attractive place to be.”

In terms of what companies like his would like to see from local, state, and federal government, he said, that wish list would include better transportation infrastructure and caution around ​“well-intentioned laws that might actually hurt us in terms of innovating to stopping the impact of serious diseases. There’s a happy medium where we can regulate cost while not removing the incentives for people who invest in companies like ours to do so.”

What about biotech incubator space and lab space in the city? Elicker asked. Is there enough room here for companies like KLEO to grow?

Manion said that his company recently doubled in size to 18 full-time employees in New Haven, in addition to the 50 or so contracted chemists based primarily in China.

He said KLEO has just about outgrown its Science Park lab space. The same is true for Arvinas, he said. ​“Absolutely if there was some prevalent space that people could move into,” he said about more lab space in the city, ​“that would be great.” If not, KLEO will either have to build its own, or move elsewhere.

Being proximate to Yale has been a plus in attracting talented biochemists, he said. And as far as venture capital goes, funders don’t care whether a company is working out of New Haven or New York or San Francisco. ​“All they care about is that we have really, really clever innovations that will be disproportionately rewarded.”

“I’m just such an enormous believer in the future of New Haven,” Murphy said. ​“I would argue that we’ve made some mistakes in the past in this state in not recognizing the unique potential that New Haven has in being a biotech driver.” New York and San Francisco are so oversaturated to the point that they may not be able to accommodate more start-ups in the vein of KLEO.

“This is going to be a place that will be booming with biotech investment,” he said, ​“if we do things right.”

He added that this state has to come up with a better way of encouraging regional economic development, whereby cities like New Haven benefit financially even if new companies choose to locate in West Haven or Guilford or Branford.

“It would be much smarter if we were recruiting companies to the New Haven region,” he said, and that everyone benefited financially from such economic development.

Over at Ricky D’s, Murphy continued his praise for the city’s biotech economy, the businesses that sprout up around those new ventures, and the mayoral candidate he thinks is the best fit to continue to grow those sectors in New Haven. He was joined not just by Elicker, but also by Westville Alder and longtime Elicker supporter Darryl Brackeen, Jr., Elicker campaign volunteer Jayuan Carter, and Elicker campaign manager Gage Frank.

“Toni’s a great friend and I think she’s been a great mayor,” Murphy said about Harp. ​“That’s been a relationship that’s been really important to me. But this is a moment when New Haven is going to get something new, something different, and I’m really excited to grow my relationship with Justin and make sure that we’re working together in a way that can grow the economy of New Haven.”

The four then worked on that relationship, over sandwiches and out of the earshot of reporters.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Murphy’s endorsement of Elicker.