More State Money for Maryland Biotechs?

According to a report from Comptroller Peter Franchot, and as reported in the GenomeWeb Daily News sister publication BioRegion News:

Concluding that Maryland must step up government support for the life sciences, state Comptroller Peter Franchot has vowed to pursue in the new year a multi-year package of subsidies and other programs expected to catapult the industry into the nation’s top tier of bioclusters.

Sounds like the wheels are churning in Annapolis to continue building momentum with the growth in the Biotechnology sector in the state. The conclusion in a report entitled the “Bioscience Summit“, which I reported in a previous post, prepared by the Sage policy group is that:

“Maryland’s bioscience sector is among the nation’s largest, if not the largest, generating
$29 billion in annual economic output, $11 billion in income and nearly $600 million in
State government taxes. The average job supported directly by the state’s life sciences
industry pays $108,000/annum. Almost one-fifth of bioscience workers hold doctorates
and over half have graduates degrees.”

and continues…

“Over the next decade, Maryland’s biotech sector is poised to become even more globally
pre-eminent. The development of two biotechnology parks in Baltimore City in
conjunction with the massive and expanding life sciences cluster in Maryland’s D.C.
Suburbs may be enough to push Maryland past Massachusetts and California assuming
that Maryland isn’t already number one. Indeed, given its vast institutional presence
(e.g., NIH, FDA, JHU, NIST, Fort Detrick, UMB, UMBI), Maryland may already be
number one in terms of the size of its broadly defined bioscience sector. One would have
to study only California and Massachusetts to confirm this.”

Interestingly, the report also attempts to define what a Biotech company or institution is. From the report:

MdBio, a private non-profit corporation that seeks to advance Maryland’s bioscience
industry takes a more expansive view.4 In its recent report regarding Maryland’s life
sciences industry, MdBio defines bioscience organizations as those involved in the
research, development, or manufacture of:
1. biologically active molecules;
2. devices that employ or affect biological processes;
3. biological information resources; or
4. software designed specifically for biological applications.

This definition clearly supports my bias that Beer qualifies as both a biologically active substance that clearly affects biological processes and should also be considered within the Biotech sector!!