MD Bio Blog

In March, a national Realtor specializing in biotechnology purchased new real estate in Maryland, paying more than $14 million for two new buildings in Gaithersburg. The spaces will be leased out to MedImmune and GenVec, two local biopharmaceutical firms.

 The fact that such a huge expansion of biotechnology operations is happening in the middle of a recession serves as a reminder of the role this sector plays in Maryland’s economic recovery. The biopharmaceutical industry has been a major source of jobs and investment over the past decade — both here in Maryland and nationally. Properly regulated, the industry will continue to grow and help our state and this country return to economic prosperity.

 Few industries hold as much promise for providing new jobs as life sciences. Currently, the sector directly employs more than 28,000 workers in Maryland and about 686,000 nationally. Research from Archstone Consulting shows that between 1996 and 2006, the biotech sector grew about twice as fast as the rest of the economy.

Most of these jobs pay quite well. The salary for the average biopharmaceutical worker in Maryland is $81,130 a year. Nationally, it’s $88,900 a year. In total, industry employees pulled down $61 billion in wages in 2006.

Biopharmaceutical research tends to be high-tech and expertise-intensive. The products of the work — new drugs and treatments — are incredibly valuable to the country’s economy. In 2006, the industry directly contributed $88.5 billion to the gross domestic product. And biotech firms invested $45 billion into new research and development projects based in the U.S.

New jobs in biopharmaceuticals have a ripple effect on the rest of the economy, creating employment opportunities in support industries. For instance, building a research lab frequently sparks new jobs in construction and medical device manufacturing, often drawing from highly skilled union labor.

In fact, every job in biotech generates 5.7 jobs in the rest of the economy. Here in Maryland, biopharmaceutical firms are indirectly responsible for 62,000 jobs. Nationally, they’re responsible for 2.5 million.

 Of course, biopharmaceutical drugs are not cheap to develop. It now costs more than $1.2 billion and takes a decade to develop the average new medicine. And eight in 10 new drugs don’t sell enough for inventors to break even on their investment.

 With the costs of drug development rising, it’s all the more important that regulators protect new research projects. State and federal school systems need to improve the quality of science and technology education. The students of today will be responsible for conducting the research of tomorrow.

If the American work force is not sufficiently educated, biopharmaceutical firms will move their operations overseas, takings jobs and investment dollars with them.

Regulators also need to preserve and bolster intellectual property rights for new biopharmaceutical treatments. These legal protections foster drug innovation by ensuring that investors have the incentives they need to fund research.

Maryland’s economy is still suffering. State unemployment is at 7.5 percent. But biopharmaceutical research offers hope. If the government provides the right legal protections and makes an investment in the next generation of researchers, these firms can fuel our state’s economic recovery.

Richard A. Zakour, Ph.D., is executive director of the MdBio Division and MdBio Foundation for the Rockville-based Tech Council of Maryland/MdBio.