Fairfax County-based Inova Health Systems will take over the ExxonMobil headquarters building in the Merrifield area of the county to house the Inova Center for Personalized Health. The center will make Fairfax County “a community known worldwide for genomic science,” said Gerald L. Gordon, Ph.D., president and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA) at the
event at Inova Fairfax Hospital where hospital system officials announced creation of the center. The event also featured Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova as well as leaders from Inova and ExxonMobil. Inova CEO Knox Singleton announced that the Peterson Family Foundation will donate $10 million for the initiative.
“This campus will make Fairfax County a hub for world-class research and the commercialization of ground-breaking discoveries. New companies will grow as a result and more world-class researchers and businesses will want to be here,” Gordon said.
The Inova Center for Personalized Health will have three goals:
Create the world’s leading center for translational cancer research and patient care based on genomic science and individualized therapy;
Create a leading center of nationally recognized biotech researchers developing new tests, therapy and population health processes based on genomic science and bioinformatics; and,
Stimulate collaboration of life-science companies with world-class researchers leading to the expansion of the life-science economy in Virginia and the Washington, D.C., area.
Gordon noted that the center will dramatically accelerate the FCEDA’s goal of further diversifying the economic base of the county. “We’ve been working to attract, retain, and grow the county’s non- government contracting economy for several years. This announcement places Fairfax County in a leadership position in the growth of the nascent industry of translational medicine,” he said.
The center will be based in a landmark building, near the Capital Beltway interchange with Arlington Boulevard (U.S. Route 50) that has served as the “downstream headquarters” of ExxonMobil since 1999 and previously was the corporate headquarters of Mobil Corp. ExxonMobil announced in 2013 that it would consolidate its headquarters functions in a new campus in the Houston area.