2025 will be remembered as the year the USD Discovery District shifted from an idea to a place — not only on maps, but in the minds of founders, researchers, investors, policymakers, and partners across the country and around the world.
With Building 1 opening, the first biotech tenant moving in, and delegations and national leaders traveling to Sioux Falls, this was the year the Discovery District began to function as a true bioscience destination.
This year, the Discovery District didn’t just grow. It became visible. Locally, regionally, and for the first time, nationally. Throughout the year, the District was featured in outlets ranging from Sioux Falls Business to Argus Leader, and in December, our work reached national audiences through coverage by South Dakota News Watch, the Associated Press, and U.S. News & World Report.
It was the year people started flying here, driving here, touring here, presenting here.
The year Building 1 filled with movement and momentum.
The year South Dakota’s bioscience future stopped being hypothetical.
It became real.
1. From Construction to Activation: A District Comes Alive
For nearly a decade, the District existed as plans, renderings, and advocacy. In 2025, it became a functioning innovation campus.
Key milestones:
- Building 1 opened — 50,000 sq. ft. of flexible core-and-shell space
- 25% of leasable space secured by the end of year
- 6 organizations moved onsite, including the district’s first biotech tenant
- 39 events & tours hosted in Building 1
- 517+ visitors welcomed — founders, policymakers, scientists, delegations, students
What began as a single building quickly became a pulse.
This was the first year the District produced proof: companies choosing to locate here, press coverage, national interest, mentors flying in, and investors asking to understand what’s happening in South Dakota.
As one visitor put it during a fall tour:
“You can feel the potential the minute you walk in the building.”
Building 1 Visitor, Q4 2025
2025 was the first year that potential had a physical form.
2. The Discovery District Emerged as a Bioscience Destination
If one story defined 2025, it was this: people came here.
Not metaphorically. Physically. From across the country and across the world.
VIPs & National Leaders Who Toured Building 1:
- A U.S. Congressman
- A former Governor
- An Ambassador to the U.S.
- Delegations from national biotech companies
- Regional and national investors
- Researchers and science leaders
- Startup founders evaluating relocation
- International prospects, partners, and students
They came because South Dakota is now visible — a place where bioscience companies can grow quickly, cost-effectively, and with proximity to major research initiatives.
The year’s steady flow of high-profile visitors signaled a turning point: The USD Discovery District is no longer explaining why South Dakota should be on the map.
South Dakota is on the map.
3. The Discovery District Became a Hub of Leadership, Not Just Space
The Discovery District team didn’t just host activities. They activated the ecosystem.
One of the clearest signals of momentum this year was the work that happened beyond Building 1. The Discovery District team spent 2025 showing up — for founders, for partners, for policymakers, for national networks, and for global collaborators. This work rarely makes headlines, but it is the foundation of any successful ecosystem.
To visualize the scope of activity Building 1 generated in its first year, we captured the District’s 2025 impact in the infographic below.
In 2025, team members:
- Traveled 18,561 miles to meet partners, founders, investors, and stakeholders.
- Presented across the state, including:
- Joint Appropriations Committee, SD Legislature
- Sioux Falls City Council
- USD Foundation
- South Dakota Board of Regents
- Attended 10 regional bioscience events and four national conferences, including AURP International, BIO International, AURP I2RP, Medical Alley, South Dakota Biotech Summit, and Design for Medical Devices.
- Delivered more than 40 hours of founder mentoring and coaching, including:
- 20+ hours mentoring Luceque’s K-Startup cohort (Ryan Oines)
- 60+ hours supporting NSF I-Corps ventures (Marc-Antoine Niamba)
- Engineered 1,400 hours of development work on internal AI platforms (Marc-Antoine Niamba), establishing the district’s emerging digital infrastructure for research mapping and company attraction
- Supported university, state, and regional innovation initiatives, including partnerships with USD, Avera, Sanford, SBDC, the Chamber, and Forward Sioux Falls.
- Built global relationships, including Korea, Canada, and multi-state collaborations.
- Shaped national conversations about emerging bioscience regions and “favorable environments” for scientific work.
These numbers describe something deeper: a team not simply stewarding a facility, but building an environment where innovation can grow.
National Engagement & Leadership
- 20 hours on the AURP Planning Committee (Ryan Oines)
- 20 hours on the AURP Marketing Committee (Tung Nguyen)
- Planning and coordinating the IEEE AI Symposium, which ultimately moved to USD Sioux Falls (Marc-Antoine Niamba)
Marc’s primary contribution was not the symposium itself, but the architecture behind it: coordinating logistics, designing event infrastructure, and helping bring a national AI conversation to South Dakota. This type of work is quiet, disciplined, and essential to building credibility.
Why It Matters
As Tung shared during a presentation this year:
“Ecosystems don’t grow by accident. They grow when someone shows up first.”
Tung Nguyen, Partner, Thel Consulting
This year, the Discovery District showed up — consistently, visibly, nationally.
And people noticed.
South Dakota News Watch described the USD Discovery District as a catalyst for a rapidly emerging biotech opportunity in the state.
Founders, researchers, and global partners began reaching out to the Discovery District directly — a shift that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.
2025 was the year the Discovery District became an active participant in the national bioscience economy.
4. South Dakota’s Talent Engine Accelerated
A growing bioscience region isn’t built by infrastructure alone. It requires a workforce pipeline that is technically strong, industry-aligned, and capable of supporting the next decade of innovation. In 2025, the Discovery District saw meaningful signals that South Dakota’s talent ecosystem is maturing — and becoming an asset for companies evaluating the region.
USD Strengthened Its Position as a Training Ground for Bioscience & AI Talent
Two major academic milestones reshaped the regional pipeline this year:
• USD’s Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program earned prestigious ABET accreditation, validating the rigor of a curriculum that integrates engineering, physiology, and translational research. For companies in diagnostics, devices, and advanced manufacturing, this accreditation matters — it ensures students are trained to national industry standards.
• USD expanded and formalized its leadership in artificial intelligence education.
South Dakota’s first specialized computer science degree in AI launched in 2019, and the momentum has accelerated dramatically:
- Undergraduate CS enrollment grew 66% in the past two years
- Graduate enrollment grew 500% in the same period
- A dedicated Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence launched in Fall 2024, preparing students for leadership in AI research, development, and application
- The University of South Dakota currently offers undergraduate degrees in Computer Science with an Artificial Intelligence specialization
This evolution, paired with USD’s distinction of offering the state’s only AI degree program, aligns directly with national demand for computational and machine-learning talent in biotech, diagnostics, and digital health.
Together, these programs signal a shift: South Dakota is no longer only importing bioscience and AI talent. It is producing it.
Where the USD Discovery District Fits In
The Discovery District’s role is not to replicate university programming — but to serve as the place where academic training becomes industry application.
Companies like OmegaQuant consistently reference the value of this proximity. As Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson shared:
“We are deeply connected to the best scientists all over the world in this area.”
—Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson, OmegaQuant Analytics
That connection is strengthened when research, workforce, and industry share a physical and collaborative environment.
In 2025, Building 1 became a platform for exactly that:
- Students toured labs, met founders, and saw real scientific workflows
- Companies engaged with faculty and emerging talent directly onsite
- Visiting global innovators—from robotics to medtech—interacted with USD learners and researchers during their time in the District
This is how ecosystems develop: not by simply offering degrees, but by creating spaces where learning, research, and commercialization reinforce one another.
Looking Ahead
With ABET-accredited biomedical engineering, a rapidly expanding AI pipeline, and increasing visibility among national bioscience companies, South Dakota is positioned to meet emerging workforce needs with homegrown talent.
The USD Discovery District’s role in 2026 and beyond is clear: Continue building the environment where that talent can stay, grow, and contribute to the innovations shaping the state’s future.
5. The Market Study Elevated South Dakota’s National Visibility
The release of the 2025 Market Study: Mapping the Growth Potential put data behind what visitors were already sensing: South Dakota’s bioscience opportunity is real, differentiated, and competitive.
The study highlighted:
- Speed-to-build advantages unmatched nationally
- Low operating costs compared to coastal markets
- Alignment with federal research priorities
- Growing founder interest in emerging markets
- A clear strategy for the next decade of growth
Coverage from South Dakota News Watch amplified the findings to a statewide and national audience.
As President Ryan Oines said in the article:
“In the research park world, we always say it’s a 20-year overnight success.”
Ryan Oines, President, USD Discovery District
6. Favorable Environments: A New National Platform for Bioscience Storytelling
In November 2023, the USD Discovery District launched a new way to share the stories behind scientific progress: Favorable Environments, a podcast exploring what it takes for innovation to grow, scale, and reach real-world impact.
This year, the team released three video podcast episodes, totaling 154 minutes of published content and approximately 21 hours of production effort from host Tung Nguyen. What began as a small experiment quickly became a meaningful platform — one that connected South Dakota’s bioscience community to national and international audiences.
The podcast’s name draws from the E.O. Lawrence idea that “science grows in favorable environments.” For the Discovery District, that phrase has become a guiding principle. Favorable environments happen when people share knowledge, when global perspectives reach local innovators, and when researchers and founders understand each other’s realities. The podcast created space for exactly that.
Episode Highlights from 2025
#13 – Wassim Laroussi: Exploring Public Biotech Stocks
Founder of The Biotech Investor YouTube channel, Laroussi shared an unconventional path into biotech — from pharmacy technician, to software developer, to managing quality systems at IQVIA, to becoming a widely followed biotech analyst.
He offered listeners a grounded framework for understanding biotech investing, emphasizing fundamentals over hype:
“If you’re new, don’t look at charts. Imagine yourself as a billionaire buying the entire company — would it be worth it?”
Laroussi unpacked trends such as post-COVID market corrections, capital constraints, and the surge in oncology and obesity M&A. He also framed biotech as a form of global “soft power,” where discoveries made in the US shape health worldwide.
The episode helped put South Dakota’s growing sector in context: even small markets can play a role in a global innovation economy if they build the right conditions for science to thrive.
#14 – Fabrice Paublant: Cooling the Future with Liquid Ventilation
In this conversation, Orixha CEO Fabrice Paublant shared the twenty-year journey behind Vent2Cool, a liquid ventilator poised to transform post-cardiac arrest care. With its ability to cool a patient to 32–33°C in under 20 minutes, the technology could shift global standards for cardiac and respiratory treatment.
Paublant brought a leadership philosophy that resonated deeply with the Discovery District’s work:
“It’s always better to make a decision, even if it’s the wrong one, than to procrastinate.”
His perspective on mentorship, interdisciplinary teams, and responsible spending offered a practical roadmap for medtech founders — and a window into why partnership-oriented places like South Dakota matter.
#15 – Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson: Measuring What Matters
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson, Director of Research at OmegaQuant Analytics — one of the USD Discovery District’s anchor tenants — explained how an academic idea became a globally adopted diagnostic tool. OmegaQuant has performed more than one million Omega-3 Index tests across seventy countries, with a CLIA-certified lab headquartered in Sioux Falls.
She spoke about translating complex science into accessible information:
“Testing clarifies the situation. It lets people know whether their choices are actually making a difference.”
The episode also marked the first on-air involvement of producer Ngoc Thach, who reflected on meeting Kristina during her TEDx Sioux Falls audition — a moment that revealed her rare blend of rigor and warmth as a scientific communicator.
7. What 2025 Made Clear
Across hundreds of interactions, several truths emerged:
South Dakota is ready — and others are ready for South Dakota.
This year proved demand exists for a new kind of bioscience region.
People want flexibility, not finished labs.
The USD Discovery District’s core-and-shell strategy is aligned with real market need.
Momentum compounds when people show up.
Every visitor, every tour, every conversation builds belief — and belief builds ecosystems.
We are in chapter one, and that’s a strategic advantage.
As Marc Niamba, Director of Biotech Development shared during a team meeting:
“We don’t just want to attract talent — we want to build reasons for talent to stay.”
Marc Niamba, Director of Biotech Development, USD Discovery District
Looking Ahead to 2026
If 2025 was the year the District became real, 2026 will be the year we build on that reality.
Planned priorities include:
- Expanding tenant recruitment
- Advancing national partnerships
- Strengthening global relationships
- Increasing mentoring and founder support
- Scaling public-facing content and visibility
- Preparing sites for additional development
- Continuing to activate Building 1 as a community hub
Because the Discovery District isn’t just growing companies, it’s growing a new center of gravity for bioscience in the Midwest.
Closing
To everyone who visited, partnered, mentored, coached, toured, built, presented, invested, researched, recorded, collaborated, or simply believed:
Thank you.
You helped make 2025 the year the USD Discovery District became real.
And what comes next will be even more extraordinary.