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Tuesday, June 25, 2002

By Alan Russell

If you had a dollar for every time your children asked you "Why?" you would be rich. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, "Why biotech?" I would be extremely rich.

Pamela Gaynor's balanced article (June 12) about a recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution carried the headline "Biotech Bonanza Bypassing 'Burgh." Although no one is providing a dollar, it is important to explain why the headline improperly focuses on the negative, to a misleading degree.

In case you do not want to invest too much time reading about the nuances of biotech business opportunities, let's begin with the central message. If we as a region invested as much energy in learning, planning and, most importantly, doing, as we invest in asking, "How likely are we to fail?" we would significantly improve our chances for success in many endeavors.

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There is no dispute that a biotech bonanza will occur this century. Many believe that in the same way that electricity influences every aspect of our lives without us ever noticing it is there, so biotechnology will be used to further improve our quality of life.

Today we make food, clothes and pharmaceuticals with biotechnology. We recycle waste, clean up oil spills and detect and destroy biological or chemical weapons with biotechnology. We are learning how to grow new organs in laboratories and we are using cells to treat heart disease and brain trauma.

If this is the reality of biotechnology of today, imagine the impact of biotechnology in 10, 20 or 50 years. Of one thing we can be sure: Whether it is biotechnology or baking, if we do not play the game we cannot win. We all know there are no ways to "get rich quick." Success will take hard work, perseverance and a good dose of luck. It is time to build. We must build on our phenomenal regional strengths and compete for the spoils of the biotech bonanza instead of watching from the sidelines asking, "Why bother?"

So how should we view the 44-page Brookings Institution report that placed us behind in the pack the front-runners of biotech hunting regions, but not as a front-runner? The report is richly detailed and uses numbers and statistics to compare regional performance in a variety of relevant measures. The report impacts us because we are in the midst of investing heavily in biotechnology and one can use the report to determine whether we are investing in the correct places.

The Brookings report makes clear that no region can be rich in biotech without a large research base. Our research numbers alone rank us in the top 15 in the country, but we are still a few hundred million dollars short of where we need to be.

Interestingly, if you analyze the Brookings data more carefully, you see that of those 15 regions, only four produce more research investment per scientist. Each of our scientists brings more resources to the region than those in Boston, San Francisco and San Diego combined. Funding from the National Institutes of Health to university research programs continues to grow. This is great news from one perspective, but it also means that it is hard to improve productivity further. Fortunately, our regional leadership (through University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and Carnegie Mellon University President Jared Cohon) has recognized that our infrastructure for research is saturated and cannot expand further without investment in buildings, facilities and imported researchers. This is a key goal of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse led by Dennis Yablonsky.

The Brookings report also indicates that as a region we are woefully behind in commercial activity. We all know how hard it has been to make the transition from a steel-based economy to a future without steel. But can we compete in biotechnology? The answer is easy, although the work ahead is hard.

We can compete and win if we focus on our areas of biotechnology where we have great strength. Our market niche has been identified by the PLSG and few would dispute our leadership in the four niche areas selected. PLSG, in partnership with other organizations, will drive investment in these areas and foster increased commercial activity. While we also are behind in venture capital investment, that is another area where we are behind.

Again, the good news is that local venture capitalists such as Birchmere LLC are now discovering regional investing in biotechnology. Even foreign venture capitalists are joining up, now populating the Pittsburgh biotechnology environment. The Brookings report validates the entire strategy that our region has elected to follow (of investment in infrastructure and people as a catalyst for commercial activity).

Pittsburgh has many strengths. Let's close by doing something unusual and focusing on the good things. UPMC Health System is one of the most financially stable and highest-quality medical centers in the country. Our university researchers are more productive than 95 percent of the competition. Biotechnology entrepreneurship is on the rise and venture capital investment in the Pittsburgh biotechnology sector is heading in the right direction.

The Brookings Report shows we are investing in the right places, at the right time and in the right way. The biotech train is rolling. Let's take some risks, have some fun and get on and enjoy the ride.

Alan Russell is director of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and director of Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative.