The number of Massachusetts residents working in the biotech industry has reached an all-time high, according to new data compiled by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. The number of biotech workers in 2008 was 45,905, up just slightly from the year before, but up 42.6 percent over the past seven years.

And when politicos talk about bringing good-paying jobs to the state, this is what they mean: the average biotech salary is $89,829, a huge raise from the average salary across all sectors in Massachusetts, which is $51,151.

Massachusetts got a slightly smaller slice of the venture capital pie for the first half of 2009, winning about 18 percent of all biotech VC funding across the country, down from 20 percent last year. But Massachusetts remains the second-best funded state, after California, when it comes to VC investment in biotech. (more…)