November 16, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
WILMINGTON, Del. – Could a shrinking health sciences industry workforce actually be an opportunity to kick-start biotech recruiting in Delaware? Some industry insiders believe so, given the availability of employees looking for work.Chris Yochim, chairman of the Delaware BioScience Association, told the Delaware News Journal that recent downsizing from companies like DuPont and AstraZeneca has created a pool of readily available talent for entrepreneurial minded startups looking for a state to call home.
“If you can create real incentives for entrepreneurs in this space and foster a culture of innovation, a lot of that talent will stay here and become part of the next wave of economic growth,” Yochim told the Journal.
Mike Bowman, president of the Delaware Technology Park, also believes the state should look to foster a robust health sciences industry, which he said is less risky than state leaders pursuing more typical manufacturing jobs.
“Startups can be risky, but those investments are less expensive than the whale hunting the state’s doing now,” Bowman said in an interview with the Journal.
As an example of how a biotech company can absorb employees recently laid off by other health science companies, the Journal pointed to Incyte, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel small molecule drugs for oncology, which is headquartered in Alopoca, Del. Incyte Corporation has the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat myelofibrosis. Incyte’s Jakafi is expected to generate approximately $500 million in 2015. The success of that drug is driving the company, in part, to hire an additional 400 employees. Incyte currently employs approximately 525 workers, each with an average salary of $150,000, the Journal said.
The Journal points to Incyte as a company that relocated to Delaware in search of talent. In an interview Paula Swain, the company’s executive vice president of human resources, told the Journal that the company was able to capitalize on acquiring a number of medical chemists who were laid off after DuPont was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company . In addition to picking up available talent, Incyte was able to secure state funding to help it equip a research laboratory.
In late 2012, Incyte received an $11.12 million to help fund 266 new jobs, nearly doubling the company’s workforce, the Journal noted.
Since 2009 the state has provided approximately $35 million to develop the biotech industry, the Journal said.
Of course, while Delaware officials discuss the possibility of fostering a health bioscience industry, other northeastern states are in the midst of a health sciences boom, including New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, with the greater Boston area being a prime example of an exploding industry.
One of the reasons for the greater Boston area becoming such a major hub in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries is the plethora of research universities in the area. Boston also has one of the highest educated workforces in the nation. Not only are smaller companies calling the Boston area home, but many larger and established pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer Inc. , GlaxoSmithKline , Takeda Pharmaceuticals , Sanofi , Biogen Idec, Inc. and Novartis have presences in the city. The close proximity of so many pharmaceutical and university laboratories provides researchers and scientists easy access to clinical studies and building partnerships between companies.
New Jersey is seeing a surge in activity for biotech due to facility expansions, acquisitions, and research institution mergers, as well as an increase in companies moving or beginning operations in the Garden State. The state is also known as a hub for new drug approvals. So far this year, 16 of the 27 new products approved by the FDA came from companies with a significant footprint in New Jersey. In 2014, 40 percent of drugs approved by the FDA came from companies that also have a strong footprint in the state.
