ReGen Valley to receive $44 million through federal Tech Hubs program

The Manchester effort to escalate the mass production of human tissue and organs has been earmarked for $44 million from the federal government, officials announced Tuesday.

Last fall, “ReGen Valley” — the marketing moniker for the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) — was named one of 12 Tech Hubs by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration.

The designation put the biofabrication project led by inventor Dean Kamen in line for a share of $504 million earmarked for the program. Tuesday’s announcement detailed how much each Tech Hub will receive.

Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves traveled to Manchester on Tuesday to formally announce the news.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris at the start of this administration have been focused on harnessing the American innovation that we see here in Manchester and spreading economic opportunity to every corner of the country,” Graves said to a group of ARMI executives, government officials and community partners gathered at 150 Dow Street, a building that is being retrofitted for biofabrication labs and production space.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen talks to a group gathered in a Millyard building Tuesday when federal officials announced $44 million in Tech Hubs funding for the ReGen Valley biofabrication effort in Manchester.

The announcement marks the federal government’s ongoing investment in the project, which Kamen initiated in the Manchester Millyard in 2017. The effort now has more than 200 industry partners.

In May, ARMI officials confirmed that the Department of Defense has committed $100 million over the next 10 years to the project. That funding is an extension of the original $80 million secured from the Department of Defense in 2017. Other major awards include $44 million from the Economic Development Administration as part of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge in 2022.

The regional effort, which also includes Nashua, is estimated to create several thousand jobs in the years ahead, says organizers, who cite workforce development, the high cost of housing and a shortage of child care services among the greatest challenges the project faces.

ARMI also faces competition from bigger cities and state with much greater resources, Kamen said during his remarks Tuesday.

“I think it’s pretty clear that when you look at what’s going on all over this country and some of the biggest states with the biggest state and other federal budgets in health care — Texas, California, New York — what ARMI is doing now with 200 members is creating an explosion of opportunity here. But it’s put us under stress for child care, for housing, to create the workforce of the future we need,” Kamen said.

Kamen acknowledged the support of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation in supporting legislation that has led to the federal funding ARMI has thus far secured.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen noted the vast potential of the work underway to improve health care for people fighting diseases, including her granddaughter, Elle, who suffers from type 1 diabetes.

“We know that the chronic diseases, the challenges that people have with needing organ transplants and all of the innovation that happens here, is going to make such a huge difference in the lives of people, not only in New Hampshire but across the country,” Shaheen told the group.