New Cortex District Member, Varro, Sees Bright Future in St. Louis

The life sciences company Varro has picked St. Louis as where it wants to grow as it looks to develop commercially available medical devices that can rapidly detect pathogens easily spread through the air such as the flu, COVID and RSV.

Varro’s new lab space in one of the Cortex Innovation Community buildings is still in the early stages of being built. It’s mostly empty lab benches and wire racks for now, but in a matter of weeks, it will house the company’s space for research and development space and manufacturing clean room.

“Our manufacturing is going to look a little different than most biotech companies,” said Varro CEO Tom Cirrito. “It actually looks like a semiconductor facility because our biosensor is essentially a semiconductor.”