HSSC has attracted more than $50 million in funding from out-of-state sources to South Carolina. This funding has enabled HSSC to carry out a variety of activities that will serve to strengthen the state’s health care economy. For example, HSSC launched the CITIA-SC Regional Extension Center program, which helps implement electronic health records in primary care practices across the state. HSSC is also building a powerful statewide health information technology infrastructure which, when completed, will support a rapid increase in—and facilitate the administration of—commercial clinical trials for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Other major initiatives include HSSC’s support of the SmartState™ Program, which oversees the state’s Centers of Economic Excellence. Each research-driven Center of Economic Excellence recruits one or more renowned scientists and their respective staffs to the state to lead research and development of intellectual property for licensing and to create the entrepreneurial impetus for spinoff companies.

To date, the SmartState™ Program has attracted more than $400 million in non-state funds that have been invested in the Palmetto State's knowledge economy, creating more than 5,000 jobs. HSSC supports 12 of these Centers of Economic Excellence. In January 2009, the Washington Advisory Group described South Carolina's SmartState™ Program as “a best-in-kind program that is, or should be, the envy of other states.”

In early 2010, HSSC pioneered the first statewide health-related economic development symposium, HEAL SC, which brought together key participants and players from state and federal government, investors, researchers, and entrepreneurs. HEAL SC was attended by 140 participants and was sponsored by more than 20 organizations.

Similarly, HSSC has led collaborations that helped sponsor SouthEastBIO (SEBIO), a regional health-related investor forum, as well as the South Carolina booth at the BIO International Convention in 2011, Innoventure SouthEast, and Innoventure Health and Information Technologies symposia.