Shapiro visits Pitt research facility to push his budget's investment in innovation

Gov. Josh Shapiro continues to make the push for parts of his budget. He stopped by facilities at the University of Pittsburgh on Tuesday to make his pitch for investments in life sciences.

Shapiro visited Pitt's The Assembly facility, which is an old auto factory that turned into a research building focused on knowledge and discoveries related to cancer biology. The governor's budget calls for $50 million to spur this type of innovation, with a one-time $30 million payment to grow life sciences and $20 million coming annually.

"We know that this is a profitable sector of the economy. It's a place that not only employs a whole lot of folks, over 100,000, wages tend to be pretty high," Shapiro said.

The challenge he faces is a divided legislature. Based on party lines, Shapiro has the votes in the House for his budget but not the Senate. He said this issue goes beyond party lines and would be to the benefit of the commonwealth. Currently, the budget is sitting in the House waiting for a vote.

"Everyone is going to have to compromise. I'm gonna have to compromise. The Senate led by Republicans are gonna have to compromise. The House led by Democrats are gonna have to compromise," Shapiro said.

According to Shapiro, the Pittsburgh area is losing out on the money that comes from the research in the region. He said Pittsburgh needs to make ways for universities to complete clinical trials quicker, get a fast track to commercialize their work and then keep the talent that's being created.

"Instead of then allowing that research and development that's been done here to be taken elsewhere for commercialization, we've got to create the ecosystem where it's being commercialized right here," Shapiro said.

The governor's comments were echoed by local leaders who say this type of investment is needed to continue success and growth.