b'Fitzsimons Innovation Community CongratulatesCEO Steve VanNurden on His RetirementAfter almost 35 years in the life sciences industry, Steve VanNurden, President and CEO of Fitzsimons Innovation Community, retired at the end of 2024. To VanNurden, his successful, decades-long career boiled down to one thing: patient care. He said, I had a mentor very early in my career who told me that if you always focus on the patient, then good things will happen. Its a principle that served him well since 1990 and has been a keystone of the Fitzsimons Innovation Community mission, as well. Prior to coming to Colorado to work at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Fitzsimons Innovation Community, VanNurden spent 22 years with Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he ultimately served as chair of Mayo Clinic Ventures. During his tenure there, his team brought more than 2,000 discoveries, ideas, and developments into commercialization, an accomplishment that would later lead him to develop CU Innovations. He arrived in Colorado with a track record of turning innovations and ideas into companies and products, but he also had another goal. He wanted to put Colorado on the map as a life sciences innovation center. Long considered a flyover state between the healthcare hotbeds of San Francisco and Boston, Colorado had a lot of growing to do to become recognized in those same terms. VanNurden knew Fitzsimons Innovation Community and its partners could help make that happen. When I started at Fitzsimons Innovation Community in 2012, we had about 20 companies on campus, and were now over 80. Weve built three additional buildings and have a new master plan in place for major infrastructure developments in the next few years, he explains. When asked about one of his favorite accomplishments from his career, VanNurden explained that hiring and working with highly talented people and then watching many of those people go on to really big things is at the top of his list. Another thing VanNurden is especially proud of is the way his team has developed Fitzsimons Innovation Community into an ecosystem.He explains the importance of that by saying:Some people call our campus an incubator, but its much more than that. I personally dont think the incubator concept works; our campus is an ecosystem. I dont think there is any life sciences idea that cant be pursued on this campus, and thats because of the way we work together. 184 acres of high-tech Today, the one square mile of Fitzsimons Innovation Community has more economic impact than any other entity in the state besides Denver International Airport, bigger even than the entire ski industry, VanNurden says proudly. To us, that sounds like Colorado is officially on the life sciences map, and we know Steve VanNurden played a big part in putting it there and in space to plan and build making sure patient care remained at the heart of it all. 19'