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Brookings study has region in lower tiers

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

By Pamela Gaynor, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Biotechnology may be the latest gleam in the eyes of Pittsburgh's economic development officials, but it's a long way from being an industry the region can count on for growth.

That's according to a newly released report that surveys the underpinnings of the biotechnology industry in 50 metropolitan areas across the country.

In a 44-page study unveiled yesterday, the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., research organization, ranked Pittsburgh in the third of four tiers of metro areas as measured by biotech activity.

The report, which reviewed everything from government research dollars and venture capital that regions attract to the number of patents they develop and companies they start, comes as Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and other cities and states across the country are devoting huge sums of money into developing the biotech industry and jobs.

Metro areas that don't fall in the top two tiers might want to examine all of their options and take a realistic view of what it takes to become a player before actually spending all the money, said the study's author, Joseph Cortright. "Growing this industry isn't the [same as the] old-time industrial recruiting game," he said.

"I think it's going to be extremely expensive and risky to develop a biotech industry where you don't have one."

The study made some valid points, officials from the local biotech industry said. But they contend that doesn't mean biotech doesn't hold promise for the region.

For one thing, the study emphasized pharmaceutical development over other forms of biomedical development, said Dennis Yablonsky, chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, which received $33 million of the $100 million Pennsylvania has spent to establish three such centers across the state.

The Greenhouse and the region's universities will be targeting other opportunities, including biomedical devices and tissue engineering, he said.

In some areas that involve the convergence of information technology and traditional laboratory biotech discoveries, "There isn't a region stronger in the country than we are," said D. Lansing Taylor, founder and chief executive of Cellomics, one of the region's fledgling biotech companies.

Where Pittsburgh falls well short of major biotech centers is in commercial activity, said Cort-right, the Brookings study's author. On the plus side, he added, Pittsburgh's universities have been attracting increasing amounts of funds from the National Institutes of Health.

The study, which examined the largest 51 metro areas, essentially concluded that a biotech industry that has been three decades in the making already has created "centers" in nine that have both research and commercialization capabilities. These are Boston; San Francisco; Philadelphia; New York; San Diego; Seattle; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Los Angeles; and the Baltimore/Washington area.

Another four metro areas -- Chicago, Detroit, Houston and St. Louis -- can lay claim to being research centers, it said, while 28, including Pittsburgh, "have some biotechnology research and commercialization but at levels well below the average of the 51 metro areas in the sample."

The remaining 10 cities analyzed had none, according to Brookings' methodology.

Post-Gazette staff writers Jim McKay and Frank Reeves contributed to this report.