Biotech Legislation Casts Long Shadow Over State | Leaders shouldn't forget the less glamorous industries
A lot of positive forces have recently come together for the biotech industry in Massachusetts, but it may be time to look beyond biotech to improvements in the general business atmosphere.
The state legislature passed the $1 billion life science bill and two days later Gov. Deval Patrick signed the bill with great pomp and circumstance before he hopped on a plane to San Diego for the nation's largest biotechnology conference.
Bay State Cheerleaders
Once there, he and many other state officials, elected and appointed, were expected to promote the promise of life for biotech companies in the Bay State, with a special emphasis on the variety of grants available to help companies move here.
But even as this milestone package promises to help keep Massachusetts front and center as a leader in biotech, when everyone comes back to earth from San Diego, it is probably past time to begin looking around at how to make the state a better place to do business period.
The state's $1 billion over 10 years is quite an investment, and one that certainly will bring a lot of benefits to Central Massachusetts.
It provides $90 million to the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester toward the establishment of an advanced therapeutics cluster. The cluster will include three centers for stem cell biology, RNAi therapeutics and gene therapies centers, with three directors and 10 to 15 faculty members per center. The school itself will kick in another $175 million.
The $1 billion also provides $8.2 million to establish a stem cell registry and bank at UMass Worcester and another $12 million in matching grant funds for research.
And in Framingham, the law includes $12.5 million to upgrade the infrastructure around Genzyme Inc., which has several large facilities there, so it can continue to expand.
The money will go a long way locally, but there are a lot of companies in nearly every sector worried that the push to make the Bay State biotech-friendly will eventually come, if it hasn't already, at their own expense.
The companies that have been here for a lot or a little, but make the more mundane articles like plastics, metal screws and machined parts, are still trying to do business in the midst of poor infrastructure (really, let's just say our roads are evil and be done with it), high housing costs that make it difficult for workers to find affordable housing and regulations and permitting that are uneven throughout the state.
And it's not just the manufacturers of the mundane that are concerned. Companies that make high tech, incredibly complex scientific and defense equipment are afraid that the focus on biotech will mean there will be no attention paid to other kinds of industries.
During the legislative process just before the life sciences bill was passed, one or two Republican senators discussed why they weren't in favor of the bill and their arguments boiled down to the fact that there are a lot of issues in Massachusetts that make it very expensive to do business here.
Lone Voices
So while it's debatable that the life sciences bill is âa big mistakeâ as state Sen. Richard Tisei, R-Wakefield, said in public remarks just prior to the bill's passage, he's got a point about the issues facing business in general.
âWe have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country, highest health insurance rates, and unemployment insurance costs. We haven't spent any time in this session dealing with any of those high cost drivers that are driving all of the businesses out of this state.â
As great an economic driver as the life sciences bill may end up being, it doesn't mean the state can ignore the business climate for everyone else.
One of Tisei's senate mates, Sen. Michael R. Knapik, R-Westfield, summed it up pretty well:
âIt is private enterprise that is the powerful engine of the economy. Those are the ones we should try to celebrate, make their jobs easier, so they can employ the constituents we want. We have stood for an awful lot that's good for Massachusetts.â n
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