After spending much of her life on the U.S. coasts, Clareo Biosciences co-founder Melissa Smith felt Kentucky was the best place to grow her life sciences company.
Smith co-founded Clareo Biosciences in Louisville in 2024. The company uses technology developed at the University of Louisville to analyze the immune system's genetic characteristics, helping researchers better understand disease susceptibility and how individuals may respond to treatments, including cancer immunotherapies.
In September 2025, Clareo Biosciences expanded into Northern Kentucky, becoming one of the first three biotechnology startups to join LifeSciKY's newly opened laboratory at the OneNKY Center in Covington. The move marked another step in Covington's broader evolution into a hub for life sciences and biotechnology companies in Kentucky.
Smith took the stage at StartupCincy Week alongside LifeSciKY Executive Director Christin Godale on Wednesday, Oct. 7, to discuss why she expanded into the region and why founders increasingly see Kentucky as a viable place to launch, relocate, or scale their companies.
“I think what is great about this location and the people I found is that everyone's open to talk,” Smith said.
Smith said she originally moved to Kentucky for quality-of-life reasons, finding that the state's more relaxed pace of life offered a better environment for raising her family and eventually building a company. Before relocating, she had lived and worked in major East Coast cities, including New York and Boston.
Smith credited Kentucky's affordability, supportive entrepreneurial community and accessibility to policymakers with helping her establish and grow Clareo Biosciences.
Kentucky is also investing in infrastructure to support its life sciences industry's growth. One result of that effort is LifeSciKY, a nonprofit organization that operates a life sciences laboratory incubator and coworking space on the second floor of the OneNKY Center in Covington.
Established in 2022, the organization is part of a broader effort to strengthen Kentucky's life sciences and biotechnology sectors by providing laboratory space and specialized equipment, supporting early-stage companies and developing a skilled workforce.
Led by Godale, LifeSciKY aims to position Kentucky as a competitive destination for life sciences startups by providing laboratory infrastructure, industry connections and opportunities for entrepreneurs to help shape the state's emerging ecosystem.
Smith said she has already participated in some of those early conversations, an opportunity she believes would be harder to come by in more established and competitive startup ecosystems, such as Silicon Valley.
"The idea that I got in early and I can be part of those conversations, I can sit in front of all of you, I can have my voice heard,” she said. “Again, that's not something I ever get in San Francisco."
Networking opportunities across the public and private sectors are another benefit of LifeSciKY. The organization connects startups with corporate sponsors, partners and vendors, including Thermo Fisher Scientific, Corning, Miltenyi Biotec, Alkali Scientific and Agilent -- all of which have a presence at the laboratory.
While Kentucky's reputation as a destination for life sciences companies is growing, Smith and Godale acknowledged that several challenges remain.
One obstacle is access to specialized talent. Compared with established biotechnology hubs, Kentucky has a smaller pool of workers with the scientific and technical expertise needed to support companies like Clareo Biosciences. Recruiting experienced professionals to the region can be difficult, particularly as Kentucky continues to develop its reputation as a destination for high-growth technology companies.
To address those challenges, Clareo Biosciences has adopted a geographically distributed workforce. Its chief technology officer is based in London, while computational biology specialists work remotely from locations across the U.S. This approach allows the company to access specialized expertise without requiring every employee to relocate to Kentucky.
Another significant challenge is access to capital. Established entrepreneurial ecosystems, such as Silicon Valley, benefit from larger concentrations of venture capital firms and investors accustomed to financing high-risk, high-growth startups. Kentucky's investment ecosystem is comparatively smaller, with fewer investors specializing in emerging industries such as biotechnology.
Smith and Godale said Kentucky has investors enthusiastic about supporting startups, but some lack the specialized scientific knowledge or industry connections to help biotechnology companies secure funding and grow.
For Smith, however, that lack of familiarity also presents an opportunity to educate investors and develop greater expertise within the region. She emphasized the importance of building relationships with policymakers who can help address barriers to growth and create a more supportive environment for emerging companies.
“Your lawmakers are the ones that can make the changes,” Godale said. “Engaging with them strategically in a way that you give them the opportunity to understand. I know science is sometimes hard because we live in parts of the country that don't always understand science, and that's okay. You can be really patient with everyone, so they have the opportunity to come level with you with science."
Despite these challenges, Smith believes Kentucky offers entrepreneurs an unusual opportunity to help shape the development of an industry while building their own companies.
From her perspective, Kentucky's business leaders’ and policymakers' willingness to engage directly with founders is a major advantage, one that has strengthened her optimism about the state's future as a destination for entrepreneurship and innovation.
