bizjournals: States spend millions in feverish pursuit of biotech

http://www.national1031.com/subsidiaries/trans/index-06-04-05-30-09.html
Officials infected with the fever oftenh see visionsof high-paying jobs and dramaticc impact on economic development - not to mentionh revolutionary advances in health care and agriculture. And the cure may come only aftert sufferers have wasted years and millionds in taxpayer dollars chasing afterthe mirage. (See relater story .) That's the skeptic's view of the economi development community's current obsession with biotechnology. Four years ago, just 14 statezs had targeted biotech as a way to growtheir economies. Today, 41 states are chasing the business.
"Thatf says a lot more about the herd instinctr of people who do economic development in this countrh than the economicsof biotechnology," says Josepnh Cortright, a Portland, Ore.-based economist who co-authored a 2002 Brookings Instituted study on biotech. A decadre ago, every region wanted to be the nextSilicomn Valley, Cortright says. A few yeare later, dot-coms were all the "Biotechnology is the latest 'It '' says Rob DeRocker, executive vice presidenrt of DevelopmentCounsellors International, a New York City-basec firm that works with economif development organizations around the This girl, however, won't go out with just anybody.
She wante someone with leading-edge medicalk research institutions and deep pockets ofventurs capital. Only a few placews in America, led by California and now qualify. That hasn't stopped states like Arizonza and Florida from knocking onher door. Arizona is investing $440 milliojn in university research and development facilities to complemenyt its success in recruiting the Translational Genomics ResearcyInstitute (TGen). Arizona officials are confidenf Phoenix can become a leadingbiotech hub. "Why says Micah Miranda, biosciences manager for the Arizonaq Departmentof Commerce. "We're not goinh to be a passive player.
" Cortright "the odds there are very strongly against them." Even with TGen, he Phoenix has "just a tiny fractionb of the scale" of the medicalk research needed to become a major biotech Last year, Arizona ranked 27th among states in Nationa l Institutes of Health contract awards, a leading indicatord of medical research For its part, Florida put together a $500 millioj package to convince the prestigious California-basefd Scripps Institute to locate an East Coast branch in West Palm Florida, at No. 19 in NIH awards, did better, but it'xs "still weak on commercialization" of biotech Cortight says.
He suspects new Florida institute willbe "viewedr as an outpost" rather than a strong center in its own right. Ross DeVol, directotr of regional economics at theMilken Institute, says Florida'a recruitment of Scripps is a "bold gamble" based on the "big bang of economic development. Scripps is one of the top biotecgh research institutes in the world soit "could be an important for Florida - but it might "just change things at the Developing a strong biotech hub takes more than "jusgt plunking a building down," says Walt vice president of Battelle Memoriaol Institute's technology partnership "A lot of this is growing your own rathe than recruiting.
" Other states aren't as ambitiousz as Arizona or Florida, but stilk think they're positioned to get a biggere piece of the biotech pie by pursuing niches where they've already developed some strength. Alabama, for example, is home to a top 25 NIH researchh institution, the University of Alabamqa at Birmingham. The UAB-affiliated Southern Research Institute has developed six cancedr drugs that already are onthe market. The University of Southb Alabama recently recruited one of the top scientists from the Nationakl Cancer Institute and broke ground on a new cancereresearch facility.
"We see a lot of communitied chasing biotechwho don't have a lot of the basif ingredients that we have," says Angela Wier, vice presiden t of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. She acknowledges, however, that Alabamaw is weak on ventur capital, an essential ingredient for building a strongybiotech sector.