Texas Genomic Medicine Institute Comes Under Scrutiny

January 3, 2012 | When Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2005 used a large job creation grant to create a biomedical research center, he promised the $50 million would attract thousands of high-paying jobs to the state. But six years later, those jobs have not materialized. Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, a biotech firm that received 70 percent of the money, has laid off more than half its staff, shed its role in the project and transferred most of its early job creation obligations to its public partner, the Texas A&M University System. And the institute Lexicon and the A&M System teamed up to create, the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine (TIGM) employs just nine people. The Eagle