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Sector Spotlight Marketing health and research City leaders work to bring life science business to By Steve Habel Since that is the case, it is only natural that business and commerce leaders in the region would push life science industries as a match for the In Central Texas, health sells. To those means, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce last February formed the Bio Greater Austin Council with a mission to establish biotechnology as an important and vibrant industry for Greater Austin by fostering an environment that attracts and supports bio-related companies, researchers and entrepreneurs. With Austin offering resources such as access to the University of Texas (which has over 90 research units and $400 million annually in research), a highly educated and skilled talent pool, angel and venture funding organizations, a dynamic quality of life and other elements the area is enticing both to biotech companies and their employees. “Through the Opportunity Austin initiative, we have identified the life sciences cluster as a target growth area for expansion and recruitment,” said Charisse Bodisch, the Greater Austin Chamber’s vice president of economic development. “The formation of the Bio Greater Austin Council is one step in the process to further enhance networking and collaborative efforts throughout the region. Additionally, the Greater Austin Chamber actively recruits potential companies through direct marketing, personal contacts and other avenues.” The Greater Austin Chamber represents the five-county region including Travis, Bastrop, Hays, Caldwell and Williamson counties. The Bio Greater Austin Council defines the bio industry as businesses that develop and/or market research or tools (with products including reagents, consumables and instruments or services), diagnostic (with products including assays and tests or laboratory services), pharma (with products including drugs, therapies and vaccines or that contract research organizations for clinical trial management, medical device (with products such as devices placed in the body – implants, stents and drug delivery ports – and instruments, tools and supplies and a catch-all category of other that included business such as agbio, food, bioveterinary, environment, safety and human identification (such as forensics and paternity). Bio industry as the Bio Greater Austin Council defines the sector does not include healthcare, med tech, hospitals and doctors offices, patient care, non-bio treatments or therapies or the sales or manufacture of vitamins, supplements or natural alternative medicines. Even without those industries, the Central Texas region sports 77 companies with 8,658 employees in the biotech and life sciences category. The City of According to a 2006 study done by the Milken Institute, The University of Texas System produced more bioscience patents than any other university from 2000-2004. “Emerging technology is a fourth pillar of the city’s economic development policy, which is why the city decided to make the investment in ATI’s latest efforts,” said Brewster McCracken, a member of the Austin City Council. “The biotech and life sciences industry is one of the top sources of venture capital funding globally. If Bruce W. Leander, chairman of the BIO Greater Austin Council and former president of Austin-based Ambion/Applied Biosystems said life science companies have always been part of the fabric of “Only recently we defined what we mean by bio or life science and then worked to identify all the companies that fall into this sector in the five-county area.” Leander said. “We were surprised the number is right around 80 companies, and I believe the number has grown more in the last few years because biotech is experiencing another upward swing in activity and success.” The Bio Greater Austin Council recently hosted the first Life Sciences HR Roundtable, at which representatives from Austin area companies discussed key workforce issues relative to the life science industry cluster. Specifically, the group examined its future interaction with institutions of higher learning and the recruitment to this region of executive level talent and other positions specific to life science. Most of the local bio companies are located here because of the quality of life, or it’s where the founders lived and chose to continue their work. Because The Chamber and the City of Austin follows through with steps to assure that life science companies continue to choose Central Texas as their home base. “Offering new companies starting up or moving here monetary incentives would allow us to compete more effectively with tens of other cities who also have an interest in growing biotech,” Leander said. “This industry usually doesn’t employ huge numbers of workers, but it represents cutting-edge progress. And life science and biotech offer to improve the quality of life through medicine, food, environment, safety and reducing suffering.” Leander added that the Austin area must capitalize of the fact that it has hundreds of very bright, high-energy scientists and that creating a bio-friendly community will make it more attractive to attract new companies. “We will see tremendous strides in the area of biotechnology over the next few decades, and it will emerge as one of the most important industry sectors of this century,” Leander said. “It is an important time to be living, contributing and watching the progress that is being made, and it would be good for us and good for Austin to continue to grow in this area.” |
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