Committee questions scaled-back state support for API reshoring, asks for federal-match details
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Summary
Officials briefed the committee on a $2.4 million governor recommendation to support an Advanced Pharmaceutical Innovation Center effort with UMSL to reshore active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production; members pressed for details on federal matches, project plans and whether reduced GR would limit results.
The committee heard a detailed conversation about an Advanced Pharmaceutical Industry Innovation Center (API) request intended to support reshoring of active pharmaceutical ingredient production in the St. Louis region.
Kim Frinsdorf, division director for federal initiatives, said the governor recommended $2.4 million in general revenue for FY27 for API reshoring and that the department could follow up with more detailed project plans, federal-match amounts and the center's planned activities for the coming year. Committee members noted the department originally requested substantially more GR and asked how much federal or private leverage those dollars pull down.
Frinsdorf said the API effort partners with the University of Missouri'St. Louis and described the center's work as mapping ingredients, running R&D and building workforce pipelines. "They identify and map certain ingredients that go into certain drugs," she said, and added the work includes research, workforce and equipment planning to make St. Louis a hub for API reshoring.
Members repeatedly asked staff to provide a spend plan: how the $2.4 million would be used in Year 1 and what federal dollars it would leverage. Staff said an $8 million federal contract/award was expected to match state investment in some scenarios, and that the department would provide the committee with more precise leverage numbers and a breakdown of planned uses.
The panel also discussed how funding would be routed: the line item is a grant to a nonprofit (the Advanced Pharmaceutical Industry Innovation Center) rather than a pass-through to multiple firms, but staff said the center works with existing Missouri manufacturers and could use funds for seed activity, retooling assistance or direct project support across partnered companies.
Representative Steinmann and others raised questions about market concentration and whether giving funds to one coordinating center could create single-supplier dynamics; staff said they would follow up with details about participants and how the center plans to avoid creating undue concentration.
Next steps: staff committed to provide the committee a written spend plan for the $2.4 million, a history of total state appropriations to API initiatives and specific expected federal matches so members can judge whether the reduced GR recommendation preserves the program's intended outcomes.