Connecticut
bioscience is open for business
A
message from CURE President Paul Pescatello
There have been
dramatic developments in the Connecticut bioscience cluster
just as our new Governor, Dannel Malloy, assumes office.
On
the one hand, Pfizer has announced its decision to move some
research projects out of state, which will result in job
losses at its Groton facilities (see links below). Moreover,
MannKind, an up-and-coming biotech with a promising new
insulin therapy, has learned that the FDA wants it to do
additional testing, which means it
must meanwhile cut jobs at its manufacturing facility in
Danbury and elsewhere until the new testing is completed.
On
the other hand, the latest
MoneyTree® Report on venture capital investment
indicates that the life sciences account for over a third of
the venture capital drawn to the state in 2010, individual
companies such as Amarin,
NanoViricides,
CMD
Bioscience and Rib-X
are continuing to attract investor interest, and Cheshire's Alexion
is even making acquisitions of its own. In the ongoing
CURE/Yale BioHaven series, Mira
Dx recently presented their exciting plans for
diagnostic products.
What
are we to conclude from this mixed picture? As I argued in a
recent op-ed
in the Hartford Courant, and again in my testimony
to the Connecticut General Assembly's Commerce committee,
biopharma remains a vital part of Connecticut's economic
future.
There
is no question that in the long run, the explosion of
information about the biochemical mechanisms of disease and
the human genome will lead to new classes of medicines and
therapies. Because of its outstanding bioscience research
infrastructure and its forward-looking policy towards stem
cell research, Connecticut will continue to draw investor
and entrepreneurial interest.
The
search for new medicines and therapies is a high cost, high
reward business. Some setbacks during the long course of
development are inevitable, and we must not be discouraged
by them. We must remember that Pfizer's strategy was driven
by forces largely outside the state's control. And if
MannKind is paying the price for an overly-cautious federal
bureaucracy, that is all the more reason why Connecticut
should continue to explore options for making itself, at the
state level, as attractive an option as possible for
investing in and conducting bioscience operations.
In
the spirit of developing an outstanding bioscience cluster,
CURE continues its commitment to the BioBus and the related
CURE BioScience Explorations programs. We recently reported,
for example, on a
visit of the BioBus to Sterling, CT.
And
as an example of that same spirit, I was delighted to see
Governor Malloy on hand for the official
dedication of the new Cell and Genome Sciences Building
at the UConn Health Center in Farmington. It was also great
to see Congressman Chris Murphy, who, when he was in the
General Assembly, was so instrumental, together with State
Senator Gary LeBeau, in leading the charge on our pioneering
stem cell legislation. Tours of the new facility will also
be part of the StemCONN
2011 symposium March 22.
No industry
invests or exports more than bioscience. In the long run, it creates great jobs — jobs with
robust benefits that aren't easily outsourced. The
multiplier effect of each biopharma dollar expended ripples
across the state's economy as in no other industry. And the
talented people attracted to the state by the industry tend
to stay here, even though individual projects may come and
go.
As long as we keep the state hospitable to bioscience
investment and operations, we will continue to attract an
industry that will serve Connecticut well.
Paul R. Pescatello is President and CEO of CURE.
ppescatello@curenet.org
Link
to Paul's other columns
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