The Medical University of South Carolina cut the ribbon Thursday on the Blue Sky Innovation Center, a lab and office building for startups that MUSC calls the first building block of an innovation district in downtown Charleston.

The center, also known as Blue Sky Labs, occupies a renovated former College of Pharmacy building at 280 Calhoun St. Eighty percent of its space is already claimed, MUSC President Dr. David Cole said, according to The Post and Courier.

“Blue Sky will enable life-changing ideas to become reality by providing much needed incubation space for early-stage startup companies,” Cole said in MUSC’s announcement.

What is inside

MUSC describes the center as a repurposed 10,000-square-foot space with more than 20 leasable wet lab spaces, plus offices for both early-stage and more mature companies. The Post and Courier reported 20 labs and 3,000 square feet of research space, while WCSC Live 5 described eight wet lab spaces available for lease.

SCbio’s accelerator program, SCbio Drive, and Bruker Corp., a maker of scientific instruments, have moved in, according to MUSC. The building is also home to MUSC’s Office of Innovation and the Zucker Institute for Innovation Commercialization, which helps MUSC researchers start companies.

The center will also host innovation, education and community events, MUSC said. MUSC students will be able to work with companies in the labs, Live 5 reported.

“We are creating a launchpad for health care solutions that will define the future,” said Jesse Goodwin, MUSC’s chief innovation officer, in the announcement.

Why MUSC built it

MUSC leaders recognized the need for this kind of space about two years ago as the number of early-stage science companies grew at MUSC and across the state, Live 5 reported. Moving discoveries in areas such as cancer and fibrosis toward real treatments requires a different setup than a university lab, according to the station.

When MUSC first described the project in May, Goodwin said none of Charleston’s existing entrepreneurial spaces offered lab space. Until then, a biotech company needing a lab had nowhere to go but the South Carolina Research Authority’s incubator on the peninsula, which is almost always full, she said in a university article.

Goodwin told Live 5 that many of the companies leasing space at Blue Sky filed their first patents 10 years ago. “And so, to me, this is a really great milestone and a culmination of really a decadelong sort of growth of innovation as a culture here,” she said.

A wider push for life sciences

The center is a partnership with the S.C. Department of Commerce, SCbio, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, Charleston County Economic Development and the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments, according to MUSC.

There are more than 1,000 life sciences companies in South Carolina, and the industry is “the fast growing sector” in the state’s economy, Ashely Teasdel, deputy secretary of the S.C. Department of Commerce, said in remarks reported by The Post and Courier.

SCbio President and CEO James Chappell told the newspaper the center is “an actual tangible partnership” between MUSC and others working to grow the industry. He said it can create what he called “the bump factor,” when a researcher from one company runs into an executive from another and a casual conversation sparks a new idea.

Goodwin said the space could also draw companies from elsewhere through partnerships with incubators and bioscience groups in other states, The Post and Courier reported.

What comes next

With the center filling quickly, MUSC may need to develop another floor of the building for more labs and companies within the next two to three years, Cole said, according to The Post and Courier. He said the center also shows the need for a broader district downtown with more centers and partners.

Blue Sky Labs is “a first start for the larger concept of an Innovation District,” Cole said, according to the newspaper.

Goodwin told Live 5 her short-term goal is to have the building fully occupied within a year by a wide range of companies, with a ground floor busy with lectures and community events. In the long run, she said, she hopes it succeeds enough that MUSC needs still more space.

Charleston Mayor William Cogswell was among those at the opening, according to The Post and Courier.