BioScience

The Richmond Region’s BioScience community provides growth opportunities in the bioscience, life sciences and medical device service industries.

The Virginia Biotechnology Research Park is a 34-acre site located in downtown Richmond adjacent to the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. The Park is home to a unique mix of more than 60 companies, laboratories and research centers with 2,400 workers in 1.2 million square feet of space.

The Richmond Region’s BioSciences industry also includes Pfizer (R&D and production of over-the-counter drugs), Wako Chemicals (clinical diagnostic reagents), Commonwealth Biotechnologies (contract R&D) and PPD (drug development services and support).

In April 2006 VCU’s Pauley Heart Center performed the first artificial heart implant on the East Coast.

In 1611, America’s first hospital, a “guest house for sick people,” was built at Henricus, the Richmond area’s first major English settlement.

In 1969, MCV Hospitals collaborated with seven other medical centers to establish the Southeastern Organ Procurement Foundation, which became the nation’s first computerized donor-recipient-matching system for kidney transplants.

In 1989, Virginia’s Department of Forensic Science was the first state laboratory to offer DNA analyses to law enforcement agencies and the first to create a DNA databank of previously convicted sex offenders.

In 1962, MCV Hospitals opened the first Clinical Transplant Center (CTC), which remains the oldest unit of its kind in the United States.

The South’s oldest medical college building is the Egyptian Building of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine, built in 1845.

Representative Companies

Richmond Firsts

Questions about the Richmond Region?

BioScience

Greater Richmond's BioScience Community

Richmond’s BrainBox makes waves in brain injury diagnostics

BioScience firm WynnVision receives $1.5m NIH award

State approves funding to build $121m STEM education facility at VCU

VCU launches Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering and Sciences

Representative Companies

Richmond Firsts

Questions about the Richmond Region?