Stony Brook University wins $75M for medical tech institute

Stony Brook University was awarded a $75 million state grant on Thursday for a new institute where medical devices and treatments will be developed and commercialized.

The board of directors of Empire State Development, the state’s primary business-aid agency, voted unanimously to pay for the construction of a 70,000-square-foot building to be used by the Institute for Discovery and Innovation in Medicine & Engineering, or I-DIME.

The I-DIME building will be completed by August 2021.

I-DIME “will provide a place where cutting edge academic research and data analytic support come together with private-sector ingenuity to solve some of the most challenging problems,” Stony Brook President Dr. Samuel L. Stanley said after the board meeting.

He also said the institute “will serve as a magnet for companies and will result in the development of new products and markets.”

The I-DIME building will be located in the university’s research and development park. The park already is home to two new, state-backed facilities: the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center and the Center of Excellence in Wireless & Information Technology.

Both are home to university researchers, students and a number of small businesses.

Together, the buildings are seen by local business and political leaders as key to the development of an innovation economy based on ideas from institutions such as Stony Brook, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Earlier on Thursday, Stanley’s chief deputy Judith B. Greiman told the ESD board that Stony Brook expects to create more than the 150 jobs it promised in return for the I-DIME grant.

I-DIME will initially focus on brain chips to correct abnormal brain function, drugs to treat cancer, hepatitis C and inflammation, and techniques and devices for personalized medical treatment and imaging, according to state records.

Stony Brook also is planning to construct an Innovation and Discovery Center, a new business incubator for startups that are more than a couple of years old but still unable to rent commercial space. The $60 million discovery center will be 200,000 square feet.

Robert L. Megna, the former state budget director who now oversees Stony Brook’s finances, said Thursday that the I-DIME building “will generate significant employment opportunities in this part of Long Island.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Thursday night said the I-DIME grant is part of a larger effort to boost medical research and development in the state. He said, “This $75 million grant will expand groundbreaking research that leads to life-saving innovation.”