New England might quickly be developing the reputation that it’s a hotbed for biotechnology activity, but some local experts say that’s not exactly the case.
It’s more accurate to say that Boston is the hotbed.
The confusion, experts say, comes with the word region, because, in fact, many of the companies cited in a Ernst & Young’s study are headquartered in and around the Boston area.
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According to the recent survey, New England is home to 53 public and 199 private biotechnology companies, with total revenues from the area’s public companies reaching near $4 billion – with most of that money coming out of the Boston area.
As a result there is a growing belief that biotechnology companies could follow the same path chartered by high technology companies, leaving many of the other New England states, including Rhode Island, overshadowed by the Bay State.
"It’s principally Massachusetts, certainly," Steve Buckley, New England director of the Ernst & Young Life Science Practice said of the New England biotech industry. "The Greater Providence area really does have a history of life science biotechnology industries, but it’s been a little checkered in the past."
Rhode Island lost its largest biotechnology firm in 1999 when Stem Cell (formerly CytoTherapeutics) moved its operations to California. And while the state has been successful in attracting smaller biotech companies in recent years, Massachusetts has been able to court industry giants like Novartis, and Genzyme. In fact, these companies alone are reportedly looking to hire more than 400 scientists in the coming year.
Still, local officials aren’t discouraged. Nor should they be. Rhode Island is expected to be home to the world’s largest cell culture manufacturing plant when Immunex Corp. completes its proposed $500 million West Greenwich expansion in 2005.
Rhode Island has spent millions of dollars over the last few years in biotechnology initiatives including the Slater Center for Biomedical Technology and the Slate Center for Environmental Biotechnology.
But Rhode Island isn’t alone in its attempts to attract this emerging industry. At least 41 other states have some program in place aimed at stimulating the development of biotechnology, according to a recent study conducted by Batelle for the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
"Competition is very, very intense," Buckley said. "(Biotechnology) is a clean industry. It hires well educated, bright people. It pays good money that is put into the local economy, and it is one of the more attractive industries to have in your backyard."
So how does the nation’s smallest state compete?
According to Thomas Vrabel, executive director of the Slater Center for Environmental Biotechnology, Rhode Island needs to find its own niche.
"I think opportunities are growing in Rhode Island," he said. "I think it’s important that the state is able to focus on the strengths that it has and not just try to be an additional part of Boston. There are opportunities there, but there are definitely opportunities here."
Buckley agreed.
"At one point you couldn’t find a biotechnology company that wasn’t sitting on either side of the Charles River," he said. "Then Worcester started investing, and you began seeing companies going to New Hampshire. Money and good science are spreading biotechnology."
And according to Vrabel, Rhode Island has both. Citing current research projects like those being done by Hybrigene, a West Kingston company using biotechnology and genetic insertions in an attempt to decrease disease in plants and grass, while at the same time reducing the need for pesticides, Vrabel said Rhode Island has its own set of "winners."
"Two of the areas right now that are being studied at the University of Rhode Island are turf grass science and aquaculture," he said. "I think these are both places that the state can be noted. There are other opportunities as well where the institutions can work off what they have. But I think that if we try to be another 128 or Silicon Valley you can lose your identity. If you don’t have your own hub, there is always a potential that things will move up the road at some point."
And if facing the fear that these biotech companies may move isn’t enough, Rhode Island, like other states, might never see substantial returns on their investments. Often times if a company gets past the research and development phase and into manufacturing they choose to do it in a place where labor is less expensive, and workers are easier to find.
"Once a company gets to manufacturing, and admittedly not many have, the ability to manufacture takes as long as two years to get validated," Buckley said.
Vrabel agreed that patience is necessary.
"These are not overnight successes," he said. "These are ideas that are 10 to 15 years in the making. What other states have shown is that if you create a cluster of technologies coming out the universities, they feed on themselves. I think there are opportunities for Rhode Island to do this."
