Welcome, everyone. 

To our guests from industry, I welcome you to the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. This is one of the most highly regarded public research universities in the nation, and I hope you have an opportunity to visit some of the state-of-the-art research facilities on this attractive campus.  As you may know, the UT Austin College of Pharmacy is ranked among the top four colleges of pharmacy in the nation. 

To the researchers from all six of our UT System health institutions, I welcome you and wish you a very productive conference in which you make many beneficial contacts.  The mission of the Texas FreshAIR initiative is to build partnerships between UT researchers and representatives of the life-sciences industry.  We want all of our researchers to showcase the large capacity for drug and biological discovery in Texas, and to continue developing a public-private collaboration hub for research and commercialization in this important region of the country.

This get-together is new for us at UT System.  It is the first time we have made a systematic effort to develop partnerships with the pharmaceutical, biotech, and diagnostic industries.  The way forward is through sustained relationships.    Researchers and industry representatives – think of this conference as your first date.  We’re just getting acquainted with one another.  Who knows where this could go?

As you have heard, I am a transplant surgeon by profession, and for nine years I served as president of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, from 2000 to 2009.  I am deeply committed to biomedical research and to the development of drugs that benefit our patients and very often save lives.  One of the reasons I am happy to be here today is to support the hard work and many accomplishments by everyone in this room.  We are very much on the same team.  In fact, while I served as president of the Health Science Center, we made enormous progress in our research capacity:

• Sponsored program awards – including grants, contracts, awards, and gifts – increased 48 percent, reaching the $203 million mark in 2008.  Our total external awards made us one of the largest research institutions in Texas and one of the top 100 in the nation.
• National Institutes of Health awards increased 38 percent, from $66 million to $91 million.
• And research and research-related expenditures increased 150 percent to $210 million.

As a medical doctor, I understand what is at stake here. 

To our guests from industry – let me introduce you to some facts about University of Texas health institutions and why you should be interested in our work:

• The University of Texas System is composed of nine universities and six health institutions spread across this large state, with an operating budget of $14.6 billion.
• The UT System is the second largest system of higher education in the nation, with research expenditures totaling $2.4 billion.  Last fiscal year we had $3.1 billion in sponsored research. 
• Three-fourths of the UT System’s sponsored research takes place at our six health institutions. 
• The UT System is fortunate to have four Clinical and Translational Science Awards from the National Institutes of Health.
• Of the 10 Nobel Laureates in Texas, 7 work for UT institutions.
• UT health institutions grant two-thirds of all health-profession degrees in the state of Texas.

In short, we are among those leading systems of higher education in America that set the standards of excellence in innovation and research.  Let’s watch a video that will tell you more about us.

          We are very proud of the drug research and development taking place at UT M.D. Anderson, UT Southwestern, and UT Medical Branch in Galveston.  But let me also mention outstanding initiatives that are under way at other UT health institutions:

• UT Tyler has a new college of pharmacy.  Almost 10 years in the making, the Ben and Maytee Fisch College of Pharmacy will be an innovative, self-sustaining program in which UT Tyler will partner with UT Health Northeast on the research conducted at this new college.
• UT Health Northeast, in Tyler, opened a state-of-the art Cancer Treatment and Prevention Center in 2011 to conduct research and clinical trials.
• The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio is the chief catalyst for the $16.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy.  This past summer, the Barshop Institute at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio was awarded a five-year, $3.4 million training grant from the National Institute on Aging.  This is the largest training grant of its kind in the nation.  In addition, the Texas Legislature recently approved $4 million to establish a Translational Aging Research Program at the Barshop Institute.
• The Senator Lloyd and B.A. Bentsen Center for Stroke Research at UT Health Science Center in Houston is breaking new ground in stroke prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
• Perhaps the largest and most exciting development is that the UT System is building not one, but two new medical schools, one on the UT Austin campus and the other that will be part of the new university being established in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.  These new medical schools will help meet the state and national need for more physicians and health professionals.  The med schools will have a tremendous impact on health care and biomedical research in Austin and South Texas, but the discoveries and advancements our scientists make will have a global effect, in the way that all great scientific and medical discoveries – and all pharmaceutical breakthroughs – create a more healthy society and transform the world in which we live.

As we look to the future of research, partnerships with industry are going to be more critical than ever, particularly as our health institutions face declining support from our state and federal governments.  That is why this conference is so important.  We have assembled a very impressive collection of creative minds here for two days in a roundtable discussion to focus on research and to figure out where we are now and where we want to be in five years – and ten.  The pharmaceutical industry has successfully partnered with researchers on both coasts – Harvard, MIT, and the Ivy League – and Stanford and the University of California system on the West Coast.  We’re inviting you to take a look at Texas.  Especially The University of Texas health institutions.  Our researchers want to collaborate with you, and they have my full support and the full support of my administration and the presidents and leadership teams at their individual institutions. 

Once again, I welcome you all to this conference and look forward to following the collaborations that develop in the coming months and years.