Press Room

From the June 11, 2004 print edition of the Austin Business Journal
From the print edition

Biotech success plan on the way

Cooperation crucial to industry's success here
Colin Pope
Austin Business Journal staff

Cooperation.

That's what it will take to grow the local biotech scene, experts say, so that will be an overriding message woven throughout a new biotech action plan for the region. The plan, being compiled by lawyers at Winstead Sechrest & Minick PC based on input from industry and economic development experts, is due out later this month.

In it, there will be an insistence on an economic triad among the private, government and academic sectors. On a larger scale, the Austin area should consummate long-distance relationships with partners such as Temple and San Antonio, whose health care assets are the yin to Austin's technological yang.

"Austin needs to think more regionally," says Ross Garsson, a Winstead shareholder helping to compile the action plan. "And we also need to really come together more on a local level and better recognize and utilize the assets that we already have."

According to a new national study of biotech hubs, the Austin area is rich with biotech assets. After being snubbed by other national reports on biotech in recent years -- many of which don't even mention Austin -- the metro area is deemed a "top geographic contender" for biotech by the Milken Institute, an economic think tank in Santa Monica, Calif.

Austin ranks 12th on a list of 12 biotech hotbeds.

On top of that, Austin is in one of the best states for establishing a biotech hub, according to a report issued by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a San Francisco group known as BIO.

Experts say the recent publicity will help Austin and its neighbors recruit and reach out to biotech companies.

But Garsson and others crafting the biotech action plan, which also focuses on nanotechnology, say a lot of reaching out still must be done in Austin's own backyard.

For years, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce has bolstered a connection among local governments, businesses and the University of Texas. But deeper ties and a better understanding of what each group has to offer are essential, Garsson says.

For example, biotech startups need more links to UT and other area universities, which are flush with the grant money and resources that make struggling entrepreneurs salivate. Government officials must be kept more in the loop, and must be ready and willing to offer any enticements they can. And the 80-plus biotech companies in Austin -- especially small ones that tend to operate under the radar -- must get to know each other better, possibly pool their resources and play off each other's strengths.

The Austin area also needs to hone in on what kind of a biotech hotbed it wants to be, Garsson says.

"Biotech is a very broad term," he says.

Susan Davenport, the Austin chamber's economic development director, says the emphasis in recent years has been on the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Austin companies such as CarboMedics Inc., which makes high tech heart valves, and PharmaForm LLC, which manufactures pills for drug companies, are exactly what Austin is seeking, Davenport says.

"We've always marketed Austin as the place where biology meets technology," she says.

According to the Milken study, Austin is a "top geographic contender" because of its educated workforce, entrepreneurial environment and technological know-how.

The educated workforce -- which is coming from places such as the new Department of Biomedicine at UT's College of Engineering and some new Austin Community College programs -- is a big reason why BIO's report praised Texas' efforts to latch onto biotech.

Texas has 32,000 bioscience workers, second only to California, the BIO report states. Texas universities granted 6,894 bioscience degrees in 2002, bested only by California and New York.

The authors of the BIO report say that 40 states are targeting the biotech industry, which isn't great news for Texas. What is good news for the state is that most of Texas' competitors lack the workforces needed to hit their targets.

Email COLIN POPE at (cpope@bizjournals.com).