Fueled By A Strong Pipeline, Prince William County Is A Thriving Alternative For Emerging Life Science Innovators

The BioCapital Region, which includes Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, is one of the top life sciences clusters in the United States.

Prince William County has rapidly emerged as a key player in Northern Virginia’s life sciences sector. The Prince William County Department of Economic Development and Tourism, or PWCDEDT, has been focused on diversifying the economy and leveraging assets like George Mason University’s Science and Technology Campus to attract innovative companies to the region.

PWCDEDT Deputy Director Trevor Johnson said that the county’s life sciences growth can be traced back to its abundant rural land, offering a rare opportunity for expansion in the Greater Washington area.

“Prince William County was a rural community in the 1980s, but our elected officials knew then that it wasn’t going to stay that way,” he said. “With Prince William being close to D.C., we wanted to present residents with more local opportunities instead of commuting outside of the county for jobs. We were able to build a partnership with GMU in the 1990s to start building our life sciences industry and begin the early stages of what's now known as Innovation Park.”

Innovation Park is a 1,500-acre university-anchored research park in the heart of Prince William County. The research park has brought thousands of jobs to the area, he said. Organizations such as the American Type Culture Center, or ATCC, a 100K SF global resource center providing scientists with biomaterials to conduct life science research, have chosen to set up headquarters there.

In 2010, GMU’s Biomedical Research Laboratory, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, helped advance groundbreaking work on the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.

“These early moves shaped Innovation Park into a place where government, academia and industry work together to push research forward while driving economic growth,” Johnson said. 

With the early success of the Innovation Park and the life sciences ecosystem thriving in Prince William, its board of county supervisors decided in 2012 to create the Prince William Science Accelerator, a public-private wet lab space between the county and building owners. The facility opened in 2014 and has equipped lab space and provided other resources that help life sciences startups.

“Not only did we see early scientific breakthroughs in cellular genomics and biodefense with Innovation Park, but its proximity to GMU’s SciTech campus made it the right place to expand the life sciences ecosystem,” he said. “The fresh talent and energy from GMU has been a shot in the arm for Prince William because those graduating students are either going to teach or launch a bioscience company in the county.”

Inviting this talent pool to the accelerator facility helped fast-track innovation and contributed to the local economy by “allowing companies to move from ideation to market as quickly as possible,” Johnson said.

After 10 years of success, the program has now rebranded into Endeavor234, drawing inspiration from the intersection of its 11100 Endeavor Ct. address and nearby State Highway 234, Johnson said.  

“We felt this rebranding had a great message behind it: You can bring your company and endeavor to make a change in the world,” he said. “We’re celebrating 10 years of being open and helping foster an entire ecosystem where new ideas can thrive, rather than just offering a lab space.”

PWCDEDT’s Business Development Manager Helena Kondow has also played a pivotal role in the county’s life sciences growth. She manages the IGNITE Startup Grant, offering high-growth businesses $100,000 in funding to expand and relocate in Prince William.

“Out of the 17 companies that have been awarded funding, six of those are actually in life sciences, who are either with the Endeavor234 or graduates of George Mason,” she said. 

She added that the department also started sponsoring the Accelerator Breakfast Series, a spinoff of the George Mason Accelerator Investor Conference that hosts quarterly pitch competitions for five high-growth and innovation-driven startups that are actively raising capital. 

Kondow has been with PWCDEDT since 2022, acting as the facilities manager of Endeavor234. She's been instrumental in both filling the space and encouraging more collaboration. 

“When the original accelerator was first established, the conference and the communal break room spaces were closed off,” she said. “Since remodeling, we've been able to open up the space to promote collaboration among our tenants.”

Kondow said that this new focus on collaboration has helped them host events with George Mason, including networking and educational programming. It also provides access to quality infrastructure for advanced manufacturing and research and design.

“We’ve been able to leverage regional assets, like our proximity to Dulles International Airport, which several of the companies within our network have said has been a huge advantage for them to distribute their products,” Kondow said.

Johnson is excited to see what's on the horizon for Innovation Park and how it will further raise Prince William’s profile as a life sciences hub. 

“We’re on the verge of something really big here in Prince William County, and Innovation Park is going to continue to be the go-to place for research, collaboration and breakthroughs in science in Northern Virginia,” he said. “With the next stage of Endeavor234, we’re not just handing life sciences companies a key to a lab, we're creating an environment where the next big idea can take off.”

This article was produced in collaboration between Prince William County Department of Economic Development and Tourism and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.