Like so many regions that finally realize the economic impact of the bioscience industry, much passion from many people has gone into wanting to make Northeast Ohio attractive to those organizations. Now, according to a Plain Dealer article today, somebody’s putting the money where the talk is.

Congratulations to these four (all but one of which are consortia of other organizations) for receiving money from the Fund for Our Economic Future (itself a collaboration of more than 50 different funding organizations in the region):

• BioEnterprise (includes Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, and University Hospitals)
• JumpStart Inc. (the merger of CWRU’s Enterprise Development Inc. NEOpreneur Inc. (a NorTech group), and NEOpreneur Exchange and is supposed to support promising entrepreneurs and start-up companies in the region)
• NorTech (stands for Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition and replaced Cleveland Tomorrow’s Technology Leadership Council and is intended to promote science and technology businesses)
• Team NEO (the Greater Akron Chamber, Stark Development Board, Lorain County Chamber of Commerce, Regional Chamber, Cleveland Tomorrow and the Greater Cleveland Growth Association fosters a regional approach to economic development)

Thanks to the Plain Dealer for explaining who all these groups are; the rapid shapeshifting of power and influence centers in the region has been hard for some of us to track. But any way you look at it, this is a lot of firepower to aim at a goal. If it can overcome issues about regionalism and sharing–which a healthy dose of funding may go a long way towards solving–the region is well positioned to take a lead in the battle to be a star arena for bioscience.