Milken Ranks Regional Biotech, Life Science Clusters

Only a handful of metropolitan areas have the critical mass necessary to ensure sustainability of their local biotech communities, according to America\'s Biotech and Life Science Clusters, a new study from the Milken Institute. At the top of the list is San Diego, followed closely by Boston and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro area. Only another nine are in the running, the report contends. According to the Institute\'s 2004 Biotech Index, the top 12 metros (and their composite scores) are: 1. San Diego (100) 2. Boston (95.1) 3. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (92.5) 4. San Jose (87.8) 5. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett (83.8) 6. Washington, D.C. (79.4) 7. Philadelphia (76.5) 8. San Francisco (75.8) 9. Oakland (74.3) 10. Los Angeles-Long Beach (66.5) 11. Orange County, CA (54.1) 12. Austin-San Marcos (47.8) If life sciences (which includes pharmaceuticals and medical devices) is included in the measurements, Boston would rank first, followed by: San Diego (2), San Jose (3), Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (4), Philadelphia (5), Seattle-Bellevue-Everett (6), San Francisco (7), Washington, D.C. (8), Oakland (9), Los Angeles (10), Orange County (11) and Austin-San Marcos (12). The rankings are based on two broad factors: Biotechnology innovation pipeline. This includes infrastructure that allows a metro to capitalize on its biotech knowledge and creativity, such as the quality of its workforce and amount of research and development dollars it receives. And, Current impact assessment - an area\'s success in bringing ideas to the marketplace and creating companies, jobs and products. Overall, researchers used 44 different measurements, from biotech venture-capital funding to the number of biotech scientists working in the region. It is the most comprehensive measurement of regional biotech centers ever conducted. Among the study\'s firsts: use of data from smaller, better-defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) instead of Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSAs); more sophisticated weighting by population, employment or gross metro product, rather than using absolute numbers; and a unique biotechnology and life sciences data set providing detailed employment estimates through 2002 for recent growth comparisons. The study measures each metro\'s strength in five categories: R&D inputs, risk capital, human capital, biotech workforce and current impact. San Diego places first in R&D inputs and current impact. San Jose is first in the risk capital category, while Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill is first in the human capital and biotech workforce categories. America\'s Biotech and Life Science Clusters, prepared in cooperation with Deloitte & Touche LLP, focuses closely on the index\'s top metro, San Diego, whose life sciences industry is directly and indirectly responsible for 55,600 jobs and $5.8 billion in income - 5.3 percent of output - in the metro. It offers a case study of what it takes to form and nurture a biotech cluster. The 107-page report is available at: http://www.milkeninstitute.org/pdf/biotech_clusters.pdf