Few pieces of biotech pie to go around

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- In an earlier era, this western Massachusetts city had a knack for the next big thing.

Draftsman Milton Bradley made the first mass-produced parlor game here, and brothers Charles and Frank Duryea built the first automobile manufacturing plant. Taxidermist Clarence Birdseye became the father of modern frozen food, and teacher James Naismith invented basketball.

Now, Springfield hopes to recapture its place on the cutting edge. It's one of dozens of cities across the country pushing to become the next hotbed of biotechnology.

So far, only one company has committed to a new, $15 million research institute along Main Street. But the institute's director, Larry Schwartz, says others would be crazy not to take advantage of its top-of-the-line equipment, talent from nearby colleges and cheap, clean living.

The new Baystate-UMass Biomedical Research Institute is just the tip of a planned $90 million initiative that includes facilities here and at the nearby University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

"It's not a sure bet because there's no such thing," Schwartz said. "But it's a good investment."

'Insatiable desire'

The only problem is, many places have come to the same conclusion -- and it surely can't be a good investment for all of them.

"It's just the insatiable desire to find the next big thing," said Joseph Cortright, an Oregon economist who has studied regional attempts to develop the sector. "Everybody has just, lemming-like, started running after the biotechnology industry."

More than 80 percent of those states and municipalities that responded to a 2001 survey prepared for a Department of Commerce conference listed biotech as one of their top two targets for development.

New Jersey has designed tax credits to appeal specifically to biotech companies, while Michigan is spending tobacco money.

Iowa hopes to spend $500 million over five years to develop three sectors, including biotech. Missouri got a $117 million charitable donation to grow the sector, but a report urged state government to do more. Tennessee took out an ad in the Toronto subway during the Biotechnology Industry Organization's annual convention last year, the group said.

Budget crunches have slowed some campaigns, but intensified others.

"Some states are of the rationale that when times are bad you have to spend more money to attract companies," said Patrick Kelly, vice president for state and government relations at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council estimates the state, with 30,000 biotech jobs so far, could add 100,000 in the next decade.

And the jobs are good ones. A 1999 survey concluded Virginia biotech workers earned on average $54,200, 83 percent higher than the state average.

Handful make money

But skeptics, while agreeing biotech's future is bright, say it's not necessarily the place for every city and town to place its bets. For one thing, biotech remains small, accounting for just 180,000 jobs nationwide. Even in Boston, no biotech companies are among the top 25 employers.

For another, many don't understand just how risky biotech is.

"When I say our state's growing biotech 10 percent per year, it's a few companies growing 20 percent, 50 percent or a hundred percent," said Alison Taunton-Rigby, president and chief executive of Forrester Biotech, which advises biotech companies. "And there's many, the technology doesn't work, they downsize and they're gone."

Of the thousands of biotech companies, meanwhile, only a handful make money. BIO has estimated it takes on average 15 years for companies to turn a profit -- if they survive -- and estimates of the industry's overall losses have approached $6 billion.

"The batting average on this is absolutely miserable," said Columbia University development economist Richard Nelson.

But the real challenge for aspiring biotech centers is the industry's tendency to cluster where it is already established, in places where scientists regularly bump into each other, swap ideas and find the talent they need.

Breaking into the club is next to impossible.

The top five biotech clusters -- Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. -- accounted for three-fourths of biotech venture capital over the past six years, Cortright found in a study published last year by The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank.

More than half went to Boston and San Francisco.

Window of opportunity

In recent years, that concentration has only grown, Cortright found. Research funding has risen sharply, but the top clusters still bring in the lion's share. In Atlanta, funding from the National Institutes of Health has grown sixfold since 1985 to $126 million, but its share of the total has hardly budged and is still dwarfed by Boston, which totaled more than $500 million in 2000.

"If you do think this is an upcoming technology, you want to be involved in it," said Maryanne Feldman, a Johns Hopkins University professor who has conducted similar research. "But by the time the guys in economic development know about this, its time has probably past."

Many areas draw their inspiration from Raleigh-Durham, which seemingly out of nowhere became a top-five center for the industry.

But Raleigh-Durham had a lot going for it: a formidable research hospital at Duke University, an established pharmaceutical industry, favorable regulations and a state government with years of experience luring companies. It's exploited a niche in drug manufacturing, making drugs for companies like Biogen, which does its research in Massachusetts.

Economists say a niche is the best bet for aspiring clusters. New Mexico, for instance, hopes to build on expertise in bioinformatics emerging from national laboratories there.

Iowa thinks its niche is agricultural and veterinary biotechnology.

Feldman says that makes sense, but worries cities and states may get into a bidding war that could harm the industry's international competitiveness. Eventually, states will just have to say no.

But Mike Blouin, who heads up Iowa's biotech development efforts, says that isn't an option.

"It's filled with risks," he said. "But doing nothing is risky too, and we choose to enter the fray."