Articles

Initiative aims to promote metro biotech industry

By BILL HENDRICK

Published on: 06/24/08 

A group of communities and organizations Tuesday announced the launch of Georgia's first regional branding campaign for the state's life sciences corridor, which stretches from metro Atlanta to Athens.

The initiative is aimed at providing workforce training for the state's growing biotechnology industry.

The new brand, to be called Georgia's Innovation Crescent, will attempt to cluster the region's life sciences resources and "more effectively promote the region's assets, marketing them to new businesses," said Ed Graham, project manager for the Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership.

One goal is to recognize the region that stretches from Cobb County to Gwinnett County as a "unique hub of life science talent."

The campaign incorporates the efforts of 18 communities and organizations that together formed the Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership.

It consists of regional leaders from local chambers of commerce and economic development organizations across the metro area plus Georgia Bio, the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

"The ICRP's mission is to improve and expand the economic development marketing efforts for the life science industry within the Innovation Crescent," said Charles Craig, president of Georgia Bio, a trade group that promotes biotech growth.

"We wanted a distinct brand that would bridge the gap between local and statewide marketing efforts, supporting what we know to be the next step in strengthening our competitive edge."

The Innovation Crescent Work Ready Region will focus on establishing a stronger link between education and workforce development for life sciences companies, he said.

He added that the initiative is part of an effort to accelerate development of Georgia's bioscience workforce, with help from a $500,000 grant awarded by Gov. Sonny Perdue, Craig said.

The workforce development effort focuses on a 13-county region — the Innovation Crescent. It spreads from Cobb County east to Oglethorpe County and includes Atlanta and Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Gwinnett, Barrow, Jackson, Walton, Morgan, Oconee, Athens-Clarke and Madison counties.

"The major goals are to create an articulated life sciences career pathway from high school to technical colleges to universities, create training for the existing life sciences industry workforce, eliminate the skills gap... and increase high school graduation rates," he said.

"GaBio and its partners are working to help improve K-12 student achievement in science and ensure Georgia has the skilled workforce to support existing life sciences industry growth and help attract new companies to Georgia," Craig said. "These programs undertaken in the 13-county Innovation Crescent can serve as a model for counties throughout Georgia."

In addition to the Governor's Office of Workforce Development and GaBio, partners include Georgia Bioscience Technology Institute, a joint program of the Athens and Gwinnett Technical Colleges; the Biotechnology Institute of Arlington, Va.; the Georgia Research Alliance; the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education; the Georgia Department of Economic Development; the Atlanta Regional Commission; and the University of Georgia's Fanning Institute.

GaBio represents 330 pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies, universities, research institutes, government groups and other business organizations, Craig said. Georgia's biotech industry accounts for more than 15,000 jobs, a payroll close to $1 billion and boasts $7 billion in product sales.

PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS JOURNAL

June 20

Group lands $2.4 million for life sciences job training

The Delaware Valley Innovation Network has launched a new work-force development fund to expand the talent pool for life sciences companies in southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and northern Delaware.

The network's innovation investment fund will provide more than $2.4 million in federal grants over the next three years to support training and "capacity building" programs aimed at increasing the supply of qualified workers for health-care, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device businesses.

"The goal of the fund is to train 5,000 new workers over the next three years and provide these workers with those skills that are most needed by the life sciences companies in the DVIN region," said Kelly Lee, Delaware Valley Innovation Network executive committee chair and the executive vice president of Innovation Philadelphia.

The 14 counties in the DVIN region are Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer and Salem in New Jersey; and New Castle in Delaware.

Biotechnology for Economic Success

» Online registration

Date: Thursday, July 17
Time: 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST
Cost: $85 for IEDC members, $125 for Non-members
Registration deadline: Tuesday, July 15
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Content contact: Dana Rothstein, drothstein@iedconline.org
Registration contact: Earnestine Jones, ejones@iedconline.org

Across the country, communities are looking to the promise of the biotech industry - especially life science start-ups - to reinvigorate their economy. Communities with strong healthcare and bioscience clusters were found to be among the top economic performers for job creation, according to recent Milken Institute research. The biotechnology industry continues to expand into new areas including agriculture and manufacturing. How do communities identify and tap into the opportunities presented by the biotechnology industry?

Join IEDC as two leading industry experts, Baiju R. Shah, President and CEO of BioEnterprise and Perry Wong, Senior Managing Economist at the Milken Institute, examine:

  emerging industry trends

  characteristics of competitive biotechnology regions

  strategies to support biotech start-ups and transfer technologies with local partner including universities and hospitals

  methods to gather community resources to support biotechnology development strategies

  recommendations on how to grow and support bioscience firms.

Perry Wong will identify emerging trends and competitive traits of successful biotech regions to help you better understand how to grasp the economic development opportunities of this economically dynamic industry.

Baiju Shah will then discuss how Cleveland was able to leverage the resources of hospitals and universities to commercialize bioscience technologies and incubate life science companies—and in the process, build the base of a new economic future for this older industrial region. Cleveland now ranks 5th in the nation for its cluster of health-related venture capital firms, due in part to the strategic efforts of BioEnterprise and others to invest in this industry sector.

Register today! Space is limited so don’t delay.

Speakers

Baiju R. Shah
President and CEO
BioEnterprise

Baiju R. Shah is President and CEO and also a Founder of BioEnterprise. BioEnterprise--a partnership of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, Summa Health System, and University Hospitals--is a business formation, recruitment and acceleration initiative to support the growth of bioscience companies. Since starting four years ago, the BioEnterprise Initiative has helped create, recruit, or accelerate more than 70 companies that have collectively attracted more than $650 million in new funding, primarily from venture capital and private equity sources.

BioEnterprise provides management advice, business development, and access to capital to medical device, biopharmaceutical, and health care services ventures in the Cleveland area. In addition, BioEnterprise works with a range of partners to catalyze the development of the region’s entrepreneurial system: new investment funds, entrepreneurial resources and training, investment conferences, talent development, and public policy. The initiative’s success has drawn significant attention and interest from regions around the U.S. that are seeking to grow their bioscience and technology clusters.

Prior to BioEnterprise, Shah was with McKinsey & Company, where he played a leading role in the Growth and Business Building practice and helped develop two new service lines: developing corporate new venture units and monetizing intellectual property.

In the community, Shah serves on the Governor’s Workforce Policy Board and Strategic Development Advisory Board, and the Boards of the Great Lakes Science Center, The Saint Luke’s Foundation, NorTech, Yale Alumni Association, and Summer on the Cuyahoga, of which he is also Founder and Chairman. Shah, a Cleveland native, received a J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.A. from Yale University.

Perry Wong
Senior Managing Economist
Milken Institute

Perry Wong is a Senior Managing Economist in Regional Economics at the Milken Institute. Wong is an expert on regional economics, development and econometric forecasting and specializes in analyzing the structure, industry mix, development and public policies of a regional economy. He designs, manages and performs research on labor and workforce issues, the relationship between technology and economic development, and trade and industry, with a focus on policy development and implementation of economic policy in both leading and disadvantaged regions. Wong is actively involved in projects aimed at increasing access to technology and regional economic development in California and the American Midwest.

Wong began his career in regional industry analysis, spatial economics, industry development economics which he applies to his work at the Institute in studies such as The Economic Contributions of Health Care to New England and Manufacturing Matters: California’s Performance and Prospects.

Prior to joining the Institute, Wong was a senior economist and director of regional forecasting at Global Insight, Inc. (formerly Wharton Econometric Forecasting. He also co-authored the DC Economic Recovery Act Impact Study presented to the U.S. Congress and worked on an API-sponsored study on the effects of carbon and particulate emission containment on the regional economy.

Wong earned his master's degree in economics at Temple University in 1990 and completed all course requirements for his Ph.D.

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We understand that CEcDs have a constant yearning to grow and improve their knowledge and expertise in economic development. Therefore, the IEDC web seminars have been approved as professional development programs for recertification. The web seminars provide a convenient and cost-effective online environment for economic developers to learn about cutting-edge research, techniques, and tools that are prevalent in the field.

CEcDs participating in a minimum of three (3) web seminars during a three-year recertification cycle can now earn recertification credits. If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Kobi Enwemnwa at kenwemnwa@iedconline.org.

Here are two good article links around the topic of workforce transformation, one recent, the other slightly older (2003)

Engineering for a Changing World:

A Roadmap to the future of Engineering Practice, Research, and Education

2008, The Millennium Project

The University of Michigan (http://milproj.dc.umich.edu )

James J. Duderstadt

President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering

The University of Michigan

http://milproj.ummu.umich.edu/publications/EngFlex_report/download/EngFlex%20Report.pdf

ENSURING WORKFORCE SKILLS OF THE FUTURE

THE BIRTH TO WORK PIPELINE (2003)

By: Rick Stephens

President - Shared Services Group,

The Boeing Company, Bellevue, Washington

and

Elane V. Scott, Consultant to The Boeing Company

http://www.cpec.ca.gov/completereports/externaldocuments/birth_to_work_pipelinev50.pdf

The challenge of future workforce education is

more than ensuring the delivery of content driven

programs at the right time. There must be

students with the desire to participate. Available

data indicates there are enough students in the

pipeline and sufficient workers available to meet

the demands of the growing employment base.

Statistics such as academic performance and

career track selections, however, indicate that

they are not strongly interested in the fields

where there is a great demand and economic

opportunity. In fact, in some cases there is even a

decline in interest, in spite of greater promise for

income, especially among women and

minorities.

This raises the question of what else is impacting

their perspectives, attitudes and beliefs such that

they do not attend programs aimed at their long-term

prosperity and meeting industry needs?