Raleigh NC| Stimulus Dollars For Biotech?

Governor Purdue Discusses Stimulus

Note: The Council for Entrepreneurial Development and The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences are both clients of MMI Associates, Inc.

In a speech at North Carolina’s Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Biotech 2009 event yesterday, Governor Bev Perdue said she would appoint a “Czar” to monitor and invest money the state receives from the $789 billion stimulus bill passed by Congress. Gov. Perdue also said she wants to double the size of our state’s biotechnology industry. Let’s hope the Czar she appoints looks with a friendly eye toward biotech.

The Congressional stimulus bill provides $10 billion for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which in turn awards grants to startups, research universities and investigators at nonprofits all over the country. In North Carolina, NIH has awarded grants to multiple startup companies, universities such as Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, and nonprofit organizations such as The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. But the NIH funding needs to be supplemented with biotech initiatives on the part of state leaders.

Political leaders in our state need to formulate pro-biotech policy decisions, provide expanded funding for biomedical research and tax relief for individual or corporate investors who back biotech. We face strong competition in this area from California, Maryland and Massachusetts. The new Czar can either make it difficult for biotech to expand in North Carolina or be proactive. Biotech has brought billions of dollars into our coffers and has the potential to lead the state out of recession. The impact of biotech employment in North Carolina is huge. Lawmakers need to do all they can to cultivate and protect the industry.