Why Drugmakers like Merck & Co., Shire and AstraZeneca PLC Leave Philadelphia for Boston
July 18, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
PHILADELPHIA – What is the city of brotherly love missing that Boston apparently has when it comes to attracting biotech and pharma business? That’s a question the region has been looking to answer after federal data showed a loss of 7,000 R&D jobs over the past decade.
That was a question Philly.com set out to answer in the wake of Merck’s decision to relocate 300 research and development positions from Pennsylvania to the greater Boston area. That shift was less than a year after Shire PLC moved 500 R&D and sales jobs to suburban Boston from Chesterbrook, Penn. and of course, the numerous positions that London-based AstraZeneca has shifted from Pennsylvania to the Boston area over the past few years.
Both areas are home to a number of highly touted academic facilities. Boston is home to Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and UMass Boston. Not to mention the countless small R&D companies that have set up shop in the area, as well as the presence of established companies such as GlaxoSmithKline , Takeda Pharmaceuticals , Sanofi , Biogen Idec, Inc. and Novartis AG , which has created a hub of pharmaceutical innovation. Boston also has one of the highest educated workforces in the nation, which is attractive for recruiters. The Philadelphia area is also home to a number of strong academic and medical facilities, including Temple University, University of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philly.com reported.
The missing piece comes down to the lack of venture capitalists, Travis McCready, chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, told Philly.com. That was an assessment that Chris Molineaux of Pennsylvania Bio agreed. Molineaux told Philly.com that area investors are looking for something that has a greater chance of being commercialized, as opposed to financing science for the sake of science.
But, despite the loss off positions in the Philadelphia area, more specifically Wayne, Penn., there has been some positive news. In June Radius Health , which is developing therapies for patients with osteoporosis and other serious diseases, opened a 14,000 square-foot site in Pennsylvania and employ 100 there. The new site will be the home of Radius Health’s pharmacovigilance and medical affairs teams. The expansion into Pennsylvania comes as the company is preparing to launch its first commercial product, abaloparatide-sc, an investigational synthetic peptide for the potential treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. The Wayne, Penn. site was chosen so Radius could “leverage the region’s vibrant life sciences community and workforce,” the company said. Wayne, Penn. is home to a number of pharma and biotech companies, including Shire’s small molecule and enzyme facility, gene therapy company Medgenics, Teleflex Medical, FemmePharma and the infectious disease diagnostics company Molecular Detection, Inc.