Battelle/BIO State Bioscience Jobs, Investments and Innovation 2014:
While not immune to the economic crisis and resulting recession, the bioscience industry weathered difficult economic times better than most industries, and is on course to regain its previous high employment levels. Indeed, the promise of bioscience-based solutions to global grand challenges in human health, food security, sustainable industrial production and environmental protection provides an optimistic picture for the biosciences as a key economic development engine in the U.S.
In this sixth biennial report, Battelle and BIO continue the tradition of reporting national and state statistics for the bioscience industry in the U.S. Returning for this edition are bioscience metrics for leading U.S. metro areas.
The latest Battelle/BIO data indicate that:
- In 2012, U.S. bioscience companies employed 1.62 million personnel across more than 73,000 individual business establishments.
- Over the past decade the industry has added nearly 111,000 new, high-paying jobs or 7.4 percent to its employment base.
- Economic output of the bioscience industry has expanded significantly with 17 percent growth for the biosciences since 2007, nearly twice the national private sector nominal output growth.
- The industry continues its tradition of creating high-wage, family-sustaining jobs with average wages 80 percent greater than the overall private sector and growing at a faster rate.
How does Arizona Measure Up?
According to the report,
- Arizona’s bioscience industry continues to experience rapid job growth, increasing employment by nearly 22 percent since 2007, a period which includes the deep national recession and overall declines for the state’s private sector.
- State bioscience firms employed 23,545 in nearly 1,300 establishments in 2012.
- Arizona’s bioscience job growth has been widespread with all five major subsectors seeing gains over the 2007 to 2012 period.
- State academic institutions accounted for $409 million in bioscience-related R&D expenditures in 2012 and NIH funding to these and other non-academic institutions totaled $182 million in 2013.
- Arizona inventors have had more than 1,400 patents issued in bioscience-related classes since 2009 and they span a variety of areas in medical devices and drugs and pharmaceuticals.
How do we compare?
Calls to Action
The good news in these numbers is that Arizona has moved up in the number of Bioscience Establishments from a Tier III to a Tier II. However, our employment rank is still at Tier III.
Our greatest opportunities for raising our employment rankings can be found in raising our levels of investment and R&D expenditures. This is the driver of both our innovation pipeline and the corresponding job growth and increased economic impact.
Opportunities to Move Up The Rankings
AZBio and its partners across the state are already in process on proactive initiatives to address tge underlying growth drivers. Here are a few examples:
- SBIR: Ask The Experts – This August, AZBio will host SBIR program managers at meetings with our research community specifically designed to assist Arizona researchers in applying for SBIR research grants from NIH and NSF.
- White Hat Life Science Investor Conference – This September, AZBio will host the White Hat Life Science Investor Conference which will bring together local and national investors with exciting bioscience companies from Arizona and across the Rocky Mountain Southwest region.
- Update and Increase our university research infrastructure through support of the Arizona Board of Regents Billion Dollar Bond Initiative.
- Update, expand, and fully fund on both our existing refundable R&D Tax Credit and Angel Tax credit programs.
- Develop new matching grant programs for companies that successfully attract research and private investment funding.
Arizona is positioning itself to be a global bioscience leader in the years to come. Now is our opportunity to step up our strategic actions and investments and move up the ranks.