Gary Cohen

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	The governors of 12 states made appearances, including Massachusetts’s Mitt Romney, who walked through the state’s relatively modest display Monday, shaking hands and giving a short speech about the state’s leadership in life sciences.		The governors of 12 states made appearances, including Massachusetts’s Mitt Romney, who walked through the state’s relatively modest display Monday, shaking hands and giving a short speech about the state’s leadership in life sciences.
-	The 30-year-old biotechnology industry is still a rarefied, science-driven corner of the business world that produces drugs few people can pronounce. And except for its largest, oldest companies, few firms have yet to turn a profit. But every year, more of America’s new drugs are produced using biotechnology, earning the industry a growing share of attention from America’s political and business leaders.	+	The 30-year-old biotechnology industry is still a rarefied, science-driven corner of the business world that produces drugs few people can pronounce. And except for its largest, oldest [http://importexporthomestudy.com/china-trading-business/china-trading-company companies], few firms have yet to turn a profit. But every year, more of America’s new drugs are produced using biotechnology, earning the industry a growing share of attention from America’s political and business leaders.
	Forty-four states now have programs to build research facilities in the hopes of seeding new biotech development, up more than 30 percent in the past two years, according to data compiled by the Battelle Memorial Institute. Most states offer tax breaks to growing bioscience firms, and several invest money directly to help small ventures get off the ground.		Forty-four states now have programs to build research facilities in the hopes of seeding new biotech development, up more than 30 percent in the past two years, according to data compiled by the Battelle Memorial Institute. Most states offer tax breaks to growing bioscience firms, and several invest money directly to help small ventures get off the ground.
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	In Greater Boston, business and political leaders often cite the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University’s powerful network of research hospitals as growth engines. But much of the industry’s growth simply comes from having a generation of executives who have grown up with 30 years of local biotechnology. Start-up companies, said Cortright, are far less likely to be run by academic scientists than by former executives of biotech powers like Biogen Idec, Genzyme Corp., or Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.		In Greater Boston, business and political leaders often cite the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University’s powerful network of research hospitals as growth engines. But much of the industry’s growth simply comes from having a generation of executives who have grown up with 30 years of local biotechnology. Start-up companies, said Cortright, are far less likely to be run by academic scientists than by former executives of biotech powers like Biogen Idec, Genzyme Corp., or Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.
-	Still, that isn’t stopping states from investing millions of dollars to attract a piece of what Cambridge has.	+	Still, that isn’t stopping [http://importexporthomestudy.com/import-business/importing-united-states states] from investing millions of dollars to attract a piece of what Cambridge has.
	California’s titanic $3 billion stem-cell initiative remains tied up in the courts, but other states have rushed to compete. In addition to the $580 million Kansas Bioscience Initiative, Washington State has earmarked $350 million of tobacco-settlement money for a ”Life Science Development Fund.” Pennsylvania and Missouri are considering plans on a similar scale.		California’s titanic $3 billion stem-cell initiative remains tied up in the courts, but other states have rushed to compete. In addition to the $580 million Kansas Bioscience Initiative, Washington State has earmarked $350 million of tobacco-settlement money for a ”Life Science Development Fund.” Pennsylvania and Missouri are considering plans on a similar scale.
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	”If we’re trying to force money into local deals that don’t measure up to national standards, that’s not going to help anybody,” Melzer said, ”because those companies aren’t going to thrive and we’re not going to survive as a firm.”		”If we’re trying to force money into local deals that don’t measure up to national standards, that’s not going to help anybody,” Melzer said, ”because those companies aren’t going to thrive and we’re not going to survive as a firm.”
-	Even when states are able to lure small companies, the benefits can be short-term. In 2002, South Carolina beat North Carolina in a high-profile bidding war by offering more than $10 million in grants, tax credits, and other assistance to entice a small pharma company called Pilot Therapeutics to the state. Today, the company is out of business.	+	Even when states are able to lure small companies, the benefits can be short-term. In 2002, South Carolina beat North Carolina in a high-profile bidding war by offering more than $10 million in grants, tax credits, and other assistance to entice a small pharma company called Pilot Therapeutics to the state. Today, the company is out of [http://importexporthomestudy.com/import-export-bus/start-an-import-export-business-2/  business].
	Other companies take advantage of local incubators or deals, only to move to a cluster when they become more mature. RenaMed Biologics Inc., a small Rhode Island company developing a sophisticated kidney therapy using live human cells, just signed a major deal with Genzyme and announced a move to Westborough.		Other companies take advantage of local incubators or deals, only to move to a cluster when they become more mature. RenaMed Biologics Inc., a small Rhode Island company developing a sophisticated kidney therapy using live human cells, just signed a major deal with Genzyme and announced a move to Westborough.

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Where I Was Last Week

== The United States of biotech ==

Fueled by Massachusetts’ success, the fight for a share of the nation’s life-sciences industry intensifiesBy Stephen Heuser, Globe Staff | April 16, 2006

CHICAGO — Look out, Cambridge. Wichita wants a piece of you.

Fueled by more than $500 million in public money, the state of Kansas has mounted a massive effort to recruit new biotechnology companies, joining battle with Florida, Washington, and other states trying to claim a share of the nation’s growing life-sciences industry.

We’re easy to get to. We have an excellent research infrastructure. And you can’t knock the cost of living and quality of life,” said Daniel Richardson, chair of KansasBio, the state’s two-year-old trade group.

Attracted by the biotechnology industry’s reputation for high-paying jobs and promise of future growth, dozens of states are pushing public money into programs designed to create biotech clusters modeled on the powerhouses of Cambridge and San Francisco.

It’s safe to say that every state in the country is targeting the life sciences as a major growth industry,” said Jim Greenwood, president of the national Biotechnology Industry Organization, at a presentation last week during BIO 2006, the industry’s flourishing national convention.

Greenwood and Richardson were among the 19,500 people who attended the convention in Chicago. While companies and investors met privately in back rooms and threw parties at the city’s restaurants and nightclubs, the main floor of the McCormick Place convention center erupted in lavish displays by dozens of states and countries trying to lure more biotech money.

To walk the halls of BIO 2006 was to wander a 8-acre landscape of growth-policy ambition. The two-story pavilion sponsored by Kansas included a spiral staircase and a café suspended above the convention-hall floor, with an illuminated sign advertising the state’s $580 million bioscience initiative. Not far away, Michigan and Iowa competed for attention with a luminous arching tent promoting Malaysia as a biotechnology research destination. Florida flew its banner as Innovation Hub of the Americas.” Pennsylvania raffled off a Harley-Davidson. Nearby, a robot with blinking diodes for eyes rolled the floor and engaged visitors in small talk while wearing a hat and golf shirt that said: Bio’s HOT in Nebraska.”

The governors of 12 states made appearances, including Massachusetts’s Mitt Romney, who walked through the state’s relatively modest display Monday, shaking hands and giving a short speech about the state’s leadership in life sciences.

The 30-year-old biotechnology industry is still a rarefied, science-driven corner of the business world that produces drugs few people can pronounce. And except for its largest, oldest companies, few firms have yet to turn a profit. But every year, more of America’s new drugs are produced using biotechnology, earning the industry a growing share of attention from America’s political and business leaders.

Forty-four states now have programs to build research facilities in the hopes of seeding new biotech development, up more than 30 percent in the past two years, according to data compiled by the Battelle Memorial Institute. Most states offer tax breaks to growing bioscience firms, and several invest money directly to help small ventures get off the ground.

Whether those states are spending their money wisely, however, is an open question. In Florida, critics have angrily denounced the $500 million in taxpayer money given to the private Scripps Research Institute to build an offshoot of its California medical-research campus.

And economists question how much states should be spending in pursuit of an industry that, while high-paying, does not create a lot of jobs. Even in Massachusetts, a small state with a big biotech industry, its impact on employment is modest. Biotechnology accounts for about 30,000 jobs in the state, about 1 percent of total employment, plus additional jobs in companies that serve and supply biotech companies.

If your objective is do some health research and stimulate knowledge of health, that’s very generous. But if your objective is to grow the Kansas economy, it’s probably not going to have any effect at all,” said Joseph Cortright, an economics consultant who published a national survey of industry growth for the Brookings Institution in 2002.

Cortright and his researchers found that while biotechnology is growing nationwide, the expansion is concentrated in a tiny number of clusters — chiefly Cambridge, San Francisco, and San Diego — where the business is already strong. In essence, that means the best way to grow a biotechnology industry is to have one already.

The era for minting these centers is really over,” Cortright said. This is an industry that started in the 1970s with Genentech and Amgen, Biogen in Boston, and those built up capacity locally and created a huge advantage for themselves that you simply can’t duplicate today.”

In Greater Boston, business and political leaders often cite the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University’s powerful network of research hospitals as growth engines. But much of the industry’s growth simply comes from having a generation of executives who have grown up with 30 years of local biotechnology. Start-up companies, said Cortright, are far less likely to be run by academic scientists than by former executives of biotech powers like Biogen Idec, Genzyme Corp., or Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Still, that isn’t stopping states from investing millions of dollars to attract a piece of what Cambridge has.

California’s titanic $3 billion stem-cell initiative remains tied up in the courts, but other states have rushed to compete. In addition to the $580 million Kansas Bioscience Initiative, Washington State has earmarked $350 million of tobacco-settlement money for a Life Science Development Fund.” Pennsylvania and Missouri are considering plans on a similar scale.

Relatively speaking, the $10 million Massachusetts legislators may put into high-tech development seems paltry, even when added to the handful of tax breaks the state offers companies to relocate. But many observers say it might not matter. Building a biotech cluster, they say, requires an entire ecosystem” of venture money, university research, and a workforce already familiar with the unique demands of a highly specialized business with long time horizons, stiff regulatory hurdles, and a huge appetite for money.

People imagine that just because their local university has a biology department, Genentech is going to spring up down the street,” said Steven Dickman, a biotechnology consultant in Cambridge.

Even areas that already possess pieces of the puzzle have trouble emulating the cluster effect” that fuels Cambridge and San Francisco. For instance, St. Louis has a top medical school at Washington University, but the city’s handful of life-sciences venture investors have trouble putting their money to work successfully at local start-up companies.

Thomas Melzer, a biotech venture capitalist at Rivervest Venture Partners in St. Louis, says he has backed a few local companies, but primarily invests his money in companies on the West Coast and in New England.

If we’re trying to force money into local deals that don’t measure up to national standards, that’s not going to help anybody,” Melzer said, because those companies aren’t going to thrive and we’re not going to survive as a firm.”

Even when states are able to lure small companies, the benefits can be short-term. In 2002, South Carolina beat North Carolina in a high-profile bidding war by offering more than $10 million in grants, tax credits, and other assistance to entice a small pharma company called Pilot Therapeutics to the state. Today, the company is out of business.

Other companies take advantage of local incubators or deals, only to move to a cluster when they become more mature. RenaMed Biologics Inc., a small Rhode Island company developing a sophisticated kidney therapy using live human cells, just signed a major deal with Genzyme and announced a move to Westborough.

It isn’t just about money,” said Greg Phelps, chief executive of RenaMed. He said the Westborough building was formerly occupied by a high-tech firm and had the right combination of clean rooms, research space, and offices to become the headquarters of a company scaling up its operation.

You can’t do it in a vacuum,” Phelps said, citing the Greater Boston area’s support infrastructure, biotech-trained workforce, and proximity to other companies. I don’t know what advice I’d give Kansas.”