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Flash Slideshow: Mass High Tech All-Stars Thought Leadership Roundtable
A public discussion Friday between Massachusetts government and business officials and local politicians and business advocates from the South Coast region, which includes Fall River and New Bedford, made clear the region’s message to the biotech industry and the state government: They don’t want to be left behind Cambridge, Boston or the Metro West area when it comes to competing for life sciences dollars and business activity.
The event was held at the Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center (ATMC) in Fall River, and featured speakers from the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC) and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC).
Local legislators and business development leaders emphasized during the event that the area suffers from high unemployment and is deserving of assistance, just as much as a town like Framingham. In its favor, the South Coast has plenty of resources, including a strong, if under-employed, workforce that has been trained in high-precision manufacturing with skills easily transferred to life sciences.
“We have a lot of available land, at a much lower cost than inside of Route 495,” said Mass. State Rep. Michael Rodrigues (D-Westport), a participant in the event. “We have plenty of water and plenty of sewer capability and utilities.”
However, the discussion emphasized that the South Coast needs help from the state to attract expanding or starting companies that might consider moving to Rhode Island or other states. “I think it makes sense for the commonwealth to insure there are investments in biotechnology statewide, particularly in the older urban areas, such as Fall River and Brockton and Springfield,” said Ken Fiola Jr., executive vice president of the Fall River Office of Economic Development. Fiola was a panelist at the event. “All of them have specific attributes, such as workforce and infrastructure, and we want to expose them. There is no reason why the state can’t help these areas,” he said.
In particular, Fall River wants to showcase its fully permitted and pad-ready, 300-acre SouthCoast BioPark, which is expected to be available for tenants in early 2009. “In addition to having appropriate zoning, infrastructure capacity and affordable land and housing prices, we believe that the site and region affords the biotech and life science cluster the ability to control their destiny with regard to current and future build-out plans in an area that makes economic sense,” said Fiola.
During discussions, he noted that the state’s Life Sciences Act, which provides $1 billion in various tax incentives, investments, and grants, had no specific language targeting investments in places such as Fall River. These communities must compete with already established biotech hosts, such as Framingham, which recently was awarded a $5.2 million grant to improve its wastewater treatement capacity to expand Genzyme Corp.’s manufacturing there. He said the legislation “had no differentiating tool” to enhance investment in cities such Fall River.
However, Melissa Walsh, the COO of the MLSC, the agency responsible for disbursing the Life Sciences Act investment cash noted much of the money had already been specifically earmarked for particular projects, some of which is targeted for Bristol County. Among these funds is $5 million for the construction of a regional incubation center for life science in New Bedford, which will be run by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Bristol Community College. Walsh noted the exact locations for making some of the discretionary investments through the Life Sciences Act were left open to avoid “creating boxes.”
Overall, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration is highly committed to the South Coast and other parts of the state, said Walsh. This includes trying to encourage students to take an interest in scientific careers.
The MLSC is also preparing to take applications from startup companies looking for investments under the terms of the Life Sciences Act, noted Luis Barros, senior vice president of industry relations at the agency. This includes companies in the South Coast region.
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