Florida’s state government and local businesses have offered the Burnham Institute for Medical Research a package of incentives totaling more than $310-million to open a research center in Orlando, the Orlando Sentinel reported today. Burnham, a leading independent research institution that is affiliated with the University of California at San Diego, will bring hundreds of scientists and other workers to the new center, which Florida leaders hope will create a new focal point of biomedical research in the United States.

In an earlier effort to jump-start a biotechnology-research boom there, the state offered some $500-million in incentives for the California-based Scripps Research Institute to open a branch in Florida (The Chronicle, November 26, 2004).