By: Fitzsimons Innovation Community
After almost 35 years in the life sciences industry, Steve VanNurden, President and CEO of Fitzsimons Innovation Community is announcing his retirement. A successful, decades-long career is bound to be filled with milestones, accomplishments, and accolades, and of course this is true for VanNurden, but to him, it all boils down to one thing: patient care. He says, “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.” VanNurden took that advice to heart and has spent his career doing just that, starting with the patient, working backwards from there, and making sure that patient outcomes stay at the heart of every decision he makes. It’s a principle that has 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 eventually 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. It’s clear that 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 that 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 we’re now over 80. We’ve built three additional buildings and have a new master plan in place for major infrastructure developments in the next few years,” he explains. “We’ve become a key economic driver here in Colorado, and a draw for companies who previously may not have given our state another look.”
When asked about one of his favorite accomplishments from his career, VanNurden explains 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. “Both here at Fitzsimons Innovation Community and during my 22 years at Mayo Clinic, I’ve had the honor of creating teams and hiring people who have gone on to do amazing things. Many times, I hired young people who had never worked in healthcare before and then had the pleasure of watching them grow into life sciences leaders over the years. That has always made me feel really good.”
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 it’s much more than that. I personally don’t think the incubator concept works; our campus is an ecosystem. When I first came to the University of Colorado, all of the entities on campus were working separately, the medical school, the hospitals, the companies on the Fitzsimons campus, all operated in their own siloes. But now all of them collaborate constantly, and that’s what turns us from an incubator into an ecosystem. I don’t think there is any life sciences idea that can’t be pursued on this campus, and that’s because of the way we work together.” VanNurden’s development of CU Innovations, his tenure as Fitzsimons Innovation Community President and CEO, and the partnerships he has formed with Colorado BioScience Association, as well as groups like Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation are all key elements in continuing to expand the ecosystem and attracting more organizations to become a part of it. “It’s proven that companies have a higher chance of being successful here, and that’s because of the collaborative resources and the room to grow.” VanNurden says.
Speaking of room to grow, we asked VanNurden what he sees in the future for Fitzsimons Innovation Community. “We have the opportunity to be an international life sciences center in the next ten years if we continue on the course of our master plan. Our proximity to Denver International Airport gives us prime access to an international hub, but our additional space for development is one of our biggest differentiators. What is just an old golf course right now will be home to organizations with ideas we haven’t even dreamed of yet. It’s almost unheard of for a community like ours to have access to that kind of raw land in the heart of an urban area. I see us going from 83 companies to 150 before long, because of that and because of all the other amenities that Colorado has to offer.” While VanNurden sees that big future as a real possibility, he acknowledges there are obstacles along the way: a need for more infrastructure, access to additional capital, and work in forming partnerships internationally. He knows the team here will be up to the task even after his retirement.
With his vision of what could be next for Fitzsimons Innovation Community revealed, we wanted to know what’s next for VanNurden during his retirement, and he told us. “For the past 35 years, I’ve had the honor of being a leader in so many capacities and I’ve been able to do many exciting things in those roles that I’m proud of. In the future, I’m looking forward to going from a leadership role to an advisor role and using my experience and expertise to help other organizations in the life sciences and healthcare spaces do big things, too.”
When VanNurden first began at Fitzsimons Innovation Community, he told us that one of the most exciting things was how many big names in Colorado healthcare and economics wanted to be on the board. “I kept telling people that this place is literally oozing with innovation, and they felt it, too. They wanted to be a part of it.” VanNurden built a board with members ranging from hospital directors to university presidents, to the mayor of Aurora, plus representatives from every stakeholder on campus. All of those visionaries saw the potential and believed in what VanNurden was building, so they gave their time and expertise to help make it happen. “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 making sure patient care remained at the heart of it all. For that, the team at Fitzsimons Innovation Community is eternally grateful. Good luck, in your retirement, Steve, and congratulations on all of your many accomplishments.
