Gov. Perry's Remarks at Kalon Acquisition Ceremony

Thank you, Dr. Brett Giroir for those kind words. I'd also like to thank you for your vital leadership recently as chair of the Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response. The recommendations made by you and all the others who served on the task force will keep more Texans healthy and safe in the event of a viral outbreak and the state owes all of you a tremendous debt.

Of course, keeping people healthy and safe is a big part of what we're celebrating today.

In fact, this new partnership will generate life-saving research and treatments for people around the world, giving them back months and even years of happiness and good health. To that end, I'd like to thank everyone involved in making today happen, including everyone at Fujifilm and Mitsubishi, and a special welcome to their executives, who are here today. Thanks also to John Foy and everybody at Kalon, not to mention Andrew Strong, former CEO at Kalon, who put a lot of hard work into this.

Today's announcement also represents a major step forward for a state that is rapidly developing into the country's new home for biotechnology. Looking back just a decade or so ago, Texas was far from a factor in biotech. Sure, we had world-class research being conducted in our state and we had world-changing discoveries being made. But those discoveries, and the jobs and prestige they bring with them, would all too often be moved to one of the coasts where venture capital and pharmaceutical infrastructure were more entrenched.

The challenge was clear: How to change things so that these kinds of innovations would stay and grow here in the state every step of the way from the laboratory to the patient. In short: How could we transform Texas into a national center of next-generation biotech jobs.

To do that, we started making investments to keep these types of companies here in the state, with Lexicon Genetics becoming an important Texas foothold in biotech back in 2005.

We built on our existing strengths, touting our low taxes, fair courts, reasonable regulations and world-class workforce to anyone who'd listen. We also made more of existing facilities, including one of the best veterinary schools in the country here at A&M. The ribbon-cutting on the Texas Institute for Preclinical Studies in 2009 was another formative step, giving researchers the ability to test promising new treatments for diseases like cancer with animal subjects.

We also helped in the creation of innovative new pharmaceutical production facilities, facilities that are flexible enough to produce multiple vaccines and drugs for testing at a huge savings of cost and time. And today, the Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing [CIADM] stands ready to rapidly produce millions of doses of vaccine in the event of a viral outbreak.

This is only part of our growing reputation in Biotech. We're seeing ground-breaking research at UT's MD Anderson Cancer Center, the study of virulent diseases at Galveston's UTMB and numerous startups from North Texas to San Antonio and beyond.

Texas has always been home to great innovators in a wide range of disciplines. We're home to visionaries, dreamers, bold entrepreneurs who challenge the status quo and lead the way into a better future for us all.

I'd like to thank everyone here for all you've done to make today possible, and for doing your part to keep Texas the best place in the nation to live, work, build a business and raise a family.

May God bless you and, through you, may He continue to bless the great State of Texas.

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