Profile on BioSTL: Meet the Nonprofit That Has Been Quietly Building St. Louis’ Innovation Economy for 25 Years

For decades, great ideas were leaving St. Louis. They were born inside the region’s labs, universities, and medical institutions—then turned into companies and jobs somewhere else. The intellectual capital was here. The ecosystem to keep it wasn’t.

That changed when Dr. William Danforth, one of St. Louis’ most respected civic leaders, saw a city with a century’s worth of untapped potential and set out to build something that would keep great ideas—and the people behind them—right here. In 2001, he and a coalition of regional leaders founded what would become BioSTL.

“We were a farm system for cultivating great ideas,” says Donn Rubin, founding president and CEO of BioSTL. “Without the ecosystem, other parts of the country were reaping the economic benefits.”