SSTI Digest

States and regions across the U.S. are continuing to make significant investments and implement policies to capitalize on the growing biosciences sector. However, a challenge they face in coming years is a leveling off of federal bioscience R&D dollars, concludes a recent report prepared by Battelle, SSTI and PMP Consulting.

Despite all the press generated each time a state commits multimillion portions of its tobacco settlement distribution toward R&D and technology-based economic development (TBED), readers may be surprised to learn economic development activities captured only 4 percent of the total payments in 2005, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Unfortunately, the report reflects one of the agonizing realities of how poorly federal agencies understand what states are doing to support the nation's innovation system: Much of what is generally accepted by the field as investments to encourage or support the knowledge-based economy is buried in several other categories of the report, including health related, education and even general purposes.

For the 12th consecutive year, the University of California tops all universities for the most patents for inventions, according to a list recently released by the U.S Patent and Trademark Office. The preliminary list reveals the top 13 U.S. universities receiving the most utility patents during calendar year 2005. All campuses are included in each school's total.

While the University of California's 390 patents in 2005 earned it top honors again, the figure reflects an 8 percent decline from the institution's 424 total in 2004 and 11 percent less than 2003. The California Institute of Technology experienced an even greater drop in patent activity between 2004 and 2005, slipping 25 percent to third overall with 101 patents. Massachusetts Institute of Technology moved into second with 136, a 3 percent increase over 2004.

Increasingly states are making it easier for high school students to participate in college courses while still attending high school. The goal of dual enrollment is to encourage more students to attend college, giving them a leg up on a degree. A new report by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education suggests the efforts are not working in Kentucky. Encouraging dual enrollment programs to provide academic rather than technical coursework may increase the matriculation rates of dually enrolled students, though.

Dual enrollment has doubled in Kentucky over the last five years. However, findings of a recent study examining dual enrollment data between 2001-02 and 2004-05 indicate that dual credit programs do not appear to enhance overall college matriculation rates.

Using data from the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, SSTI has prepared a table presenting business churning statistics and rankings for all 50 states and the District of Columbia for 2004. Business churning, a measure of new firm births and existing firm deaths as a share of total firms (small businesses with employees), is seen as a major driver of innovation and growth. Churning increases as the number of new start-ups and existing business failures per year increase.

There were an estimated 899,688 new business start-ups and 930,452 business terminations throughout the U.S. in 2004, resulting in a national business churning average of 26.10 percent - up 6.3 percent from 2003. Washington saw the largest churning rate at 40.57 percent, followed by Nevada (39.62 percent), Utah (38.89 percent), New Jersey (33.99 percent) and Idaho (31.92 percent).

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds selected Richard Benda as the new Secretary for the Department of Tourism and State Development.

Bob Dayton was named president of the Delaware BioScience Association.

Effective in May, Ken Janoski will be the president and CEO of BioGenerator, a nonprofit in St. Louis that helps scientists commercialize their discoveries.

Medical Alley and MNBIO, two organizations that merged in 2005 to promote medical sciences in Minnesota, have changed their name LifeScience Alley.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds selected Richard Benda as the new Secretary for the Department of Tourism and State Development.

Bob Dayton was named president of the Delaware BioScience Association.

Effective in May, Ken Janoski will be the president and CEO of BioGenerator, a nonprofit in St. Louis that helps scientists commercialize their discoveries.

Medical Alley and MNBIO, two organizations that merged in 2005 to promote medical sciences in Minnesota, have changed their name LifeScience Alley.

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development appointed Christine Plater as its new director of small business programs.

The South Dakota Biotech Industry Association, a new resource for biotech companies in the state, has formed.