It has been a slow dance – Rhode Island’s courtship of Pfizer, the world-renowned pharmaceutical company. But the music is still playing. The rumors fade in and out. But they never seem to go away. No, there isn’t any evidence to suggest that Rhode Island is close to landing this big one. But there is circumstantial evidence – perhaps enough to understand why the rumors seem to have a life of their own.
From Rhode Island’s standpoint, it would be a match made in heaven. The New York-based Pfizer, with a research and development center in Groton, Conn., is a world leader in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. The company employs 50,000 throughout the world, enjoys annual revenues of close to $15 billion and spends close to $3 billion each year on research and development. Pfizer is widely considered a world leader in cardiovascular research.
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Its jobs are high paying. Its pockets are deep.
From Pfizer’s standpoint, there is reason to suggest that establishing a presence in Rhode Island makes sense. Rhode Island is widely accepted to be in commuting distance of Boston and “America’s Technology Highway,” Route 128.
In fact, several sources have confirmed that “general discussions” have taken place between Rhode Island and Pfizer for years. But none of those talks has reached a formal stage. Pfizer tends to need space – the kind of acreage found in few spots, but would certainly include the former Navy base at Quonset Point/Davisville. And the company acknowledges being in a growth mode. Its mission statement includes the following; “Over the next five years we will achieve and sustain our place as the world’s premier research-based health care company.”
Kate Robins, a Pfizer spokesperson who works out of Groton, said the company does not respond to rumors. She also said that the company is always looking for opportunities.
”As a forward thinking company and a global company, we are always scouting possibilities for expansion,” said Robins.
Robins did note that Pfizer’s Groton facility has many employers who live in Westerly and other communities in southern Rhode Island.
John Martin, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, thinks Pfizer would be an ideal match for Rhode Island.
“One of our economic clusters is the life sciences, which include biomedicine and pharmaceuticals,” Martin said. “The state has the workforce and infrastructure to be a location for those kinds of companies. They provide the jobs we are looking for.”
But Martin stops short of singling out Pfizer.
“We do not comment specifically on companies we are negotiating with,” he said.
At the governor’s office, Lisa Pelosi, a spokesperson, said the governor would love to see a company like Pfizer bring thousands of jobs to Rhode Island, but that there have been no recent talks between the two sides.
The last the state heard, said Pelosi, was that Pfizer was still evaluating what they were doing in terms of growth.
“They’re still at that point,” she said.
Joseph Paolino, Jr., former Mayor of Providence and former director of the state Department of Economic Development, is a now a real estate developer. Paolino said that during his tenure, as the state’s top economic development official – January of 1991 to March of 1994 — the attraction between the Ocean State and Pfizer was mutual.
”They did have a strong interest in Rhode Island – that interest was real,” Paolino said.
Paolino said the state the state’s long running interest in luring Pfizer is worth the effort.
”If you can get someone of the caliber of Pfizer, you do what you can to get them – you go after them aggressively,” he said.
Paolino sees three growing industries – financial services, telecommunications and health care, including biotechnology. With Fidelity Investments as an obvious example, Paolino points out that the state must look closely at its tax structure.
”What the state has to do is determine what laws in terms of tax structures, need to be redefined for pharmaceutical companies and biotech,” said Paolino.
Luring any portion of a Pfizer to the Ocean State would provide an immediate spark to the state’s fledgling biotechnology community.
The viability of small biotech start-ups is becoming more and more dependent upon giants like Pfizer, said Dan Eramian, vice president of communication at the Washington, D.C.-based Biotechnology Industry Organization.
Eramian said that of approximately 1,200 biotechnology companies in the United States, there are only about 10 that have a drug on the market.
Getting a drug to market, said Eramian, is a long and expensive process. As a result, small companies look to larger ones for help.
”The actual commercialization – taking it from the laboratory to the pharmacy – can take eight or nine years and half a billion dollars,” he said.
”For biotechnology to make it in a particular area, you have to have brainpower,” he said. “You have that there.”
