State Officials Discuss Life Science Policies
More than 140 bioscience leaders from across the Commonwealth of Virginia participated in the 2009 Virginia Bioscience Business Roundtable on December 17 at the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park in Richmond.
The half-day conference was focused on the unique role the public sector plays in the development, growth and success of the life science industry. More than twenty speakers from government, industry, academia and economic development addressed topics such as technology-based economic development, the affect of healthcare reform on the bioscience industry and best practices for state-based bioscience public policy.
Industry speakers included Dr. Kevin Moses of the Janelia Farm Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Dr. Dietrich Stephan of the Ignite Institute, Eric Edwards of Intelliject LLC, David Ayares of Revivicor and Dr. Krishna Kodukula from the Center for Advanced Drug Research at SRI International.
Current Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Pat Gottschalk, and former Secretaries Mike Schewel and Bob Skunda, provided perspective on the importance of bioscience and biopharmaceutical companies to the economic development and innovation throughout the state, and made recommendations for the next administration.
Virginia State Senator Mark Herring, and Delegates Mark Sickles, John O’Bannon and Sam Nixon expressed their support for the industry, discussing last year’s passing of the “Omnibus Bioscience Bill” (SB 1338) providing tax credits for early-stage investors in advanced technology companies.
According to a study by Archstone LLC, bioscience and biopharmaceutical companies developing new medicines in the state have had a profound economic impact:
- In 2006, they supported 79,986 direct and indirect jobs throughout the Commonwealth
- The biopharmaceutical sector grew by 8.1 percent between 1996 and 2006 and that was well above the 1.7 percent growth for the rest of the economy
- The biopharmaceutical companies paid their employees about $1.8 billion in wages in 2006, resulting in $81.6 million in state taxes
- The value of the industry’s products and services was about $12.6 billion in 2006 in Virginia
- Last year, the state’s biomedical researchers conducted nearly 1900 clinical tests of new medicines, including 678 trial for cancer drugs, 102 tests for heart disease medicines, 232 rare disease treatment trials and 80 tests of HIV/AIDS drugs
Virginia ranked sixth on the Milkin Institute’s State Technology and Science Index last year. The index ranks the technology and science assets of the states and their ability to leverage those resources to achieve economic growth.
According to Billy Tauzin, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), “Virginia’s biopharmaceutical research companies and the medicines they are developing are vitally important to the state’s economy and patients all over the world. It is essential that the industry’s momentum be not only sustained, but increased and that is going to require continued collaboration among the state’s business leaders, economic development officials and state legislators.”
