Community Data

Good schools, safe streets, a skilled workforce and a diverse employment base are some of the factors that make the Roanoke Valley of Virginia an ideal location. Click the buttons to the left to learn more about the Valley by the numbers.

On Target for Life Sciences

Looking for a place to locate or grow a biomedical or biotechnology company?  Look at the Roanoke Valley!  After all, Virginia Tech – one of the nation’s most respected research universities – is just 45 minutes from the downtown business district; several industrial properties have been developed with life sciences in mind, and the Carilion Clinic (a locally based, regional healthcare company) has put its money and resources behind the effort.

• Work is well underway on the new headquarters for the Carilion Biomedical Institute in the City of Roanoke’s Riverside Center for Research & Technology. CBI is a cooperative venture among Carilion, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, with a goal of transforming ideas into realities.
• Riverside Centre, a 75-acre redevelopment area just south of the Downtown Roanoke business district, is one of two business parks developed to attract biotech and biomedical firms to the region.  The other is Roanoke County’s Center for Research & Technology, already home to Novozymes Biologicals.
• Virginia Tech is home to the Fralin Biotechnology Center, as well as the School of Biomedical Engineering and Science, a joint venture between Virginia Tech and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. SBES had a record performance at Tech in terms of new sponsored research awards in 2005-05.