The pre-pandemic strength of the Madison Region’s biohealth sector positioned it to hit the ground running, innovating in collaboration with partners in government, higher education and manufacturing.
In early March, the leaders of three Madison Region headquartered companies [Exact Sciences, Promega and Epic] came together to address the novel coronavirus. They concluded COVID-19 would make business anything-but-normal for the foreseeable future, and recognized each company had unique capabilities that could help limit the impact of COVID-19 in Wisconsin. With the full weight of the state government and Wisconsin National Guard added to the effort, their teams were able to complete tasks in weeks that would normally take months.
The Madison Region has a diversity of firms engaged in a variety of bioscience niches; a robust innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem; world-class educational institutions; and extraordinary levels of human capital that contribute to a highly skilled labor force. Madison Region Economic Partnership President Paul Jadin confirms, “without these economic assets, such rapid collaborations, strategic shifts and innovations such as the Badger Face Shield would not be possible.”
