Training, funding will keep biotech booming
Biopharmaceutical workforce development and more home-grown funding are necessary if the Central Massachusetts biotechnology sector is to continue its growth in the next decade, according to local biotech corporate and institutional officials.
"Boston investors are reluctant to invest in biotechnology companies in Massachusetts if they're not in Boston," said Jan-Eric Ahlfors, of Worcester-based Novagenesis OY, a research and development firm specializing in neuro-degenerative disease. "They will look everywhere else, California or the midwest or no-man's land before the look 50 miles west into Worcester."
Despite the lack of home-grown funding, Ahlfors said, the biotechnology sector in Worcester and Central Massachusetts is thriving. Ahlfors said he is excited to see what could happen in the region if and when real attention and resources are paid to the area.
Ahlfors and others, including 2006 Nobel Laureate Craig Mello of the University of Massachuestts, directed their comments about the state of the biotechnology climate in central Massachusetts to Gov. Deval Patrick, Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray and a large legislative contingent at a roundtable discussion held recently at the Abbott Bioresearch Center in Worcester.
In addition to the lack of local investment, many in the research community also lamented the lack of a comprehensive workforce development program that would arm recent college graduates and others with the skills they need to immediately contribute to the biotechnology economy.
Mello, awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in discovering RNAi, what he called "the Google of the cell," said more help was needed from the state in the face of federal budget cuts for stem cell and biotechnology research.
"We need you," Mello said to Patrick. "Right when we have this tremendous opportunity, we have this shortfall from Washington."
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