If you added all the biotech activity that industry executives and local officials across the country have forecast for the next decade, my guess is the industry would be roughly the size of the Chinese economy. This “biofantasy” is particularly virulent in former Rust Belt communities desperate for a next act. But it also afflicts genuine contenders such as Washington, where a host of natural advantages has yet to produce large and profitable biotech companies. That reality has been confirmed by a number of recent studies, measuring everything from the number of patents per PhD to the size of the local venture capital pool, which put Washington in the second tier of biotech clusters, behind leaders such as San Francisco and Boston.
