There is no better time than now to be in the Rural Healthcare/Telemedicine industry. With the tremendous growth currently taking place within the industry, it is time to start considering the best location for your company. Genesee County's location among leading research institutions, as well as it being the home of a new state of the art Med-Tech Corporate Park, make it the ideal location for up and coming medical technology businesses.

High Growth in the emerging industries signifies that now is the right time for action.

• Med Tech Park PDF
• Buffalo East Business Park PDF
• US Healthcare has a forecasted growth rate of 6% per annum, owning an estimated 16.2% of the GDP by 2008.
• The Biotechnology industry was worth $35B in 2004 and is expected to grow 10-15% annually.
• $678M in federal grant money to develop/facilitate rural healthcare telemedicine initiatives.

Access to universities conducting cutting edge research:

• $450M is being invested annually in life sciences (Bio-medical) research in the Upstate NY triangle of Buffalo (University of Buffalo), Rochester (University of Rochester) and Ithaca (Cornell University).
• University of Buffalo's medical campus is home to the new Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics. NYS and the US Congress invested a combined total of $71M to the project, along with $150M in private funding. This new leading research institution has corporate sponsors including Dell, Hewlett Packard, Pfizer, and Veridian.
• University of Buffalo owns the 22nd fastest supercomputer in the world and oversees more than 80 computer science research groups.
• Rochester was ranked 3rd for the number of college graduates with Life Sciences degrees per capita by the US Department of Education in 2001.
• Rochester Institute of Technology was the first to have a Biotech bachelors program in the US and have continued to be an education leader in this field.

Hotspot for Medical and Technology Industry Development:

• Over 150 companies in the medical device, research, and pharmaceutical industries are located within an hour drive. Leading companies such as Bausch and Lomb, Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceutical, and Welch Allyn are three of more than 850 medical industry companies in the surrounding area, including Toronto, Buffalo, and Syracuse.
• Over the next three years, there will be a multi million-dollar increase in life sciences private and public funding.
• The high growth experienced in the region has made financing, grants, and other capital sources significantly more accessible.
• Buffalo/Niagara, a 30-minute drive, is home to leading medical research centers in the fields of neurology, disease modeling, therapy discovery, Microarray technology, flow cytometry, molecular targeting, photodynamic therapy, biomedical/bioengineering technology, lasers, photonics, and biophotonics.

Med-Tech Park, state of the art corporate park

• Upstate Med-Tech Corp Park, located in Batavia by Genesee Community College, is directly in the middle of The Upstate NY Research Triangle of Buffalo (University of Buffalo), Rochester (University of Rochester) and Ithaca (Cornell University), creating a significant opportunity to leverage this research and participate in the commercialization of medical device firms.
• Med-Tech Park offers the perfect location for companies emerging from university research to start-up. Companies will remain close enough to the researching institutions to get needed support, enabling a greater propensity for success.

As a Rural Healthcare/Telemedicine business, there are a number of financial resources at both the state and local level to help ease the cost of starting up or expanding facilities.

Local Incentives:
Financial Assistance/Capital Formation

• Empire Zone
• Tax Abatements/Exemptions
• Sale Lease Back Agreement
• Low Cost Financing(Revolving Loan Fund, Bonds, Grants)

State and Federal Incentives:

• Empire State Development
• NYSERDA
• CDBG Small Cities

Partners can monetize via tax credit programs

• Empire Zone Capital Corp. - 25%
• New Markets Tax Credits - 39%

To find out more information on financial assistance programs and opportunities, please visit the Product Portfolio and Support Services section.

Genesee County has an abundance of low cost, highly skilled labor within easy commuting distance.

Low cost labor pool: Labor costs are on average 20% lower than regional averages, making operating a business in Genesee County more cost effective than the surrounding counties.

Abundant, well-educated workforce An abundance of highly skilled and educated workforce gives our companies the ability to keep pace with ever increasing technological demands. Over 30 colleges and universities (including Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, and University of Buffalo) educate and enhance the skills of an excess of 200,000 students across the region, ensuring a continuous supply of qualified labor.

• 84.4% of population ages 25 and higher have high school degrees or higher
• 28.3% of population ages 25 and higher have college degrees
• There is a 350,000 total workforce within a 30 mile radius of GC and 2.2 million person workforce within a 60 mile radius.
• Genesee County is home to Genesee Community College (GCC), which is experiencing strong growth and currently maintains an enrollment of more than 5,000 full-time and part-time students.

Workforce Development Services With the changing demands of the market, it is necessary for all employees to receive the skills training needed to keep up and carry the business into the future. Genesee County offers a multitude of organizations dedicated to equipping your workforce with the training that they need to succeed.

See the Workforce Development section for more information on other support services offered for employee training.

Significant Savings Potential: In addition to the aggressive financial incentives highlighted above, your company can experience additional significant cost savings including:

• Lower distribution/transportation costs: The NYS Thruway (I-90), which bisects the county, is the heaviest traveled expressway in the State, providing easy access for growing and expanding businesses. With three interchanges in Genesee County, the average driving distance to the I-90 from any of our corporate parks is less than 1 mile, presenting huge distribution and transportation savings potential for companies.
• Low Cost Electricity: Certain GCEDC parks are located where companies can receive some of the lowest cost electric rates in the country! These rates are as low as 2.5 cents/Kwh versus the Northeast average of 15 cents/Kwh.

The close proximity of Genesee County to leading research institutions allows businesses to have easy access to support from experts. Businesses can also train their employees at the institutions conducting the research and align the training programs and curriculum with the research.

The GCEDC partners with organizations that are dedicated to providing the support that your business needs in order to succeed. Whether it is employee recruitment, employee skills training, conference facilities, financial assistance or general consulting that your business needs, Genesee County houses an organization that can help.

To find out the organizations in Genesee County that provide support services, please see the Support Services section.

Other Benefits:

Location - Centrally Located, Short Distance & Travel Times to Major Economic Hubs:

• Genesee County is located in the heart of a population of 2.2 million people midway between the Buffalo and Rochester Metro regions
• NYS ranks 3rd in 2001 "Top states for new and expanded facilities" by Site Selection Magazine
• Over 9 million people are located within a 2 hour drive of Genesee County, including the Canadian border less than an hours drive away, making Genesee County a prime location for Canadian businesses seeking a US location or US businesses seeking easy access to the Southern Ontario market.
• The Genesee County Airport is a full service airport facility with a recently extended runway measuring 5,500 ft. capable of handling most business jet aircrafts.
• Maximum 30 minute drive time to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport (one of the lower cost airports in the Northeastern USA) and the Rochester International Airport.