CEOs: State biotech industry needs to develop united strategy

Wisconsin’s life sciences industry has tremendous potential, but not enough people know that, industry leaders agreed at a panel discussion.

The solution, four CEOs said during an event at Wednesday’s 2015 Bioscience Summit, is for industry leaders to unite around a marketing campaign that highlights some of the state’s strengths: its skilled workforce, research hubs and high quality of life.

“There’s never been more money in this industry,” Dohmen Company CEO Cynthia Laconte said. “I think the challenge is for us to come together into a single voice and make the case for that money coming into Wisconsin.”

The summit was presented by BioForward, which rolled out a report touting the industry’s impact on Wisconsin’s economy. The report, conducted by the Ernst and Young consulting firm, found the bioscience industry has a $27 billion impact and its wages are much higher than the private sector average.

The industry will only continue to grow due to a trend toward an aging population that “nobody’s going to reverse,” said Matt Jennings, the chairman, CEO and president of Phillips-Medisize Corporation.

But Wisconsin hasn’t come up with a long-term strategic plan to continue boosting the bioscience sector, Exact Sciences Chairman and CEO Kevin Conroy said.

Instead, policymakers tend to favor industries like manufacturing and agriculture that, while important, make up “very little of the job growth” in the state, he said.

“From a public policy standpoint, you want to ask the Legislature, ‘Where do you think growth is coming from?” Conroy said.

Yet the report also called for industry leaders to better promote the local industry and its “large, high-caliber investment opportunities” with investors across the country.

The state must not only attract more money from outside Wisconsin — which can sometimes be a challenge — but it must attract young workers who know how to commercialize research, the CEOs said.

And one way to have young workers “coming here in droves,” said Wellbe CEO James Dias, is to craft a marketing campaign around how working in Wisconsin biotech companies can make a difference in people’s lives.

“People want to be a part of these things that change the lives of people and improve wellbeing,” Dias said. “So there is an opportunity to draw young talent [to] this state around this sort of mission statement.”

— By Polo Rocha
WisBusiness.com