The Kansas Bioscience Authority is officially open for business.

Board members on Monday approved the organization’s first allocation of funds – $150,000 to help lure Prescription Solutions to Overland Park. That money, in turn, will be given by the company to researchers at a state university to help the company develop robotics to dispense drugs.

“We’re off and running,” said Clay Blair, the Overland Park businessman who chairs the board.

The Bioscience Authority, which held its quarterly meeting Monday at Kansas University’s Dole Institute of Politics, received its first installment of state funds earlier this month. It totaled nearly $6 million, with an estimated $15 million to $20 million available in the next year.

The board is charged with spending that money to attract life sciences firms, expand existing businesses, fund university research and help turn that research into spin-off companies.

The Bioscience Authority was created by the 2004 Kansas Economic Growth Act. That law provides that growth in tax dollars from the state’s biotechnology efforts will be reinvested back into the life sciences.

Blair

Blair said he worked with the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas City Area Development Council in attracting Prescription Solutions to Overland Park. The company, which fills mail-order prescriptions, is expected to have 850 jobs with an annual payroll of more than $30 million.

The project was announced last week. The Bioscience Authority money was promised contingent on board approval.

In addition to the Prescription Solutions deal, Blair said he was working with other “clear and present opportunities” to bring biotechnology firms to Kansas. Those could bring an additional 850 jobs to the state.

Blair said it was important for the Bioscience Authority to have early success, considering that growing the state’s own companies would take more time.

“We must continue to put points on the board and show results,” Blair said. “We have to demonstrate successes early and often.”

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Harold Godwin, an associate dean at the Kansas University School of Pharmacy, said he thought KU could be positioned well to receive research funds through the agreement with Prescription Solutions. KU already does some work to test the safety of using robots to dispense medications.

“Potentially, we could be of interest to them,” Godwin said. “This is a big coup for the Midwest for them to come here, because they could have gone several places.”

In other business Monday, the Bioscience Authority briefly discussed the future of its contract with the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. The board currently uses KTEC as its administrative staff.

However, Tracy Taylor, KTEC president and CEO, said some board members did not wish to have KTEC remain as the staff and would prefer to establish a separate identity for the Bioscience Authority. He declined to elaborate.

He said he would recommend to the KTEC board that it not pursue renewing the affiliation contract with the Bioscience Authority when the contract expires in February.

Blair said he thought the authority needed its own staff. But Bill Sanford, an authority board member from Naples, Fla., said he didn’t know if that was the case.

“I think it’s so important to avoid the duplication of effort,” he said.

The board took no action on the contract.