Only a handful of metropolitan areas have the critical mass necessary to ensure sustainability of their local biotech communities, according to America’s Biotech and Life Science Clusters, a new study from the Milken Institute. At the top of the list is San Diego, followed closely by Boston and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro area. Only another nine are in the running, the report contends.

NBIA Releases Revised Business Incubation Guide

Real estate developer Robert Klein II was selected as chairman of California's stem cell oversight committee.

One of the biggest obstacles for products drawing on alternative energy is finding a market big enough to bring the cost down of their new technologies to attract the larger more risk-adverse population of consumers. Californians are stepping up to the challenge after committing to invest nearly $3 billion over the next 10 years to aid in the shift to cleaner power.

The University of California (UC) is demonstrating success in several key areas under a compact designed to facilitate timely graduation. Findings of the first annual report reveal the university is achieving success in degree production in high priority areas for the state, effective community college transfer, and transfer of research innovations to the marketplace, according to the UC press office.

Foundations and philanthropists are playing increasingly important financial roles for many academic and regional technology-based economic development (TBED) efforts. The latest issue of Philanthropy News Digest, the weekly electronic newsletter of the FoundationCenter, highlights three recent announcements that provide examples of the size, scope and opportunity presented by these types of awards. The announcements are summarized below.

It may not be getting much attention from the White House or Congress, but encouraging innovation and technology-based economic development through coordinated national strategies and initiatives is very much on the legislative agenda of many other countries around the world. Recent highlights from the past few weeks include (all dollar figures are for U.S. equivalencies):

For many university tech transfer operations, the need to generate revenues to support the office and attempt to meet the often pie-in-the-sky expectations of school administrators can force licensing efforts toward only the biggest deals. Thanks to a large donation to serve as an endowment, the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering will be able to count on $1 million in interest income to support its technology transfer activities.

Dr. John Reed, president and CEO of The Burnham Institute, was appointed to the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee that will govern the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine created last month.

Just as SSTI and other post-election analysts predicted, California’s recent passage of a $3 billion commitment to stem cell research is triggering responses from across the country. Wisconsin is the first to outline a specific, strategic reaction to the California referendum in an effort to retain or regain momentum in the race to encourage bio-based economic growth.

Using data from its 2004 Best Performing Cities Index, Milken has generated a comprehensive table ranking cities by one- and five-year measurements of job growth, wages and salaries, and relative high tech gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and other measurements.

To increase the commercial value and economic benefits of federal investments in scientific research, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is launching six new research and innovation facilities valued at over $125 million.

Last year, China replaced the U.S. as the most popular destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). The creation of an IBM Research Innovation Center as an extension of its China Research Lab near Beijing University provides a recent example of U.S. interest in capitalizing on China's emergence as the planet's hottest economy.

What policies, investments and programs would be most effective for communities trying to attract, retain or build a local pharmaceutical industry? Research parks? Tax incentives? Biotech seed capital funds?

Finland remains the most competitive economy in the world and tops the rankings for the second consecutive year in The Global Competitiveness Report 2004-2005, released earlier this month by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The U.S. is in second position, followed by Sweden, Taiwan, Denmark and Norway, respectively.

Duane Roth is the new executive director of UCSD CONNECT. Roth was CEO of Alliance Pharmaceuticals in San Diego.

While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have voiced caution and funded efforts to understand the potential societal and environmental implications of nanotechnology deployment, both agencies announced much larger funding commitments - totaling $213 million - to expedite commercial applications for the explosive field.

Nanotech Solutions for Cancer

In order to provide further incentives for crucial research and development (R&D) and to encourage more industries to carry out R&D in Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, the economic development agency for Scotland has launched a new funding scheme.

More than half since recession "officially" ended

There is little comforting news in a new statistical report for workers in the U.S. information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. Researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago found the sector lost 403,300 jobs between March 2001 and April 2004.

Seekers for evidence of the increasingly global nature of competition on the research and innovation levels need look no further than some recent announcements stemming from Malaysia.

As part of a new initiative to address pressing ethical, legal and social questions raised by recent advances in genetic and genomic research, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has awarded approximately $20 million in grants to fund interdisciplinary centers within universities around the country over the next five years. NHGRI is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In signing his state's fiscal year 2003-04 budget on August 2, California Governor Gray Davis shaved General Fund expenditures by $7 billion in an effort to address a $38.2 billion budget shortfall. Among those cuts was funding for the California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency (TTCA), the state's principal catalyst for innovation, investment and economic opportunity.

TOP Reauthorized and To Grow, Says Senate Commerce Committee

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley has named Russell Hancock as its new president and CEO.

The previous issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest (June 27, 2003) included a story with the headline "Québec Investing More Than $500M for Biotech." It was the kind of big initiative with a hefty price tag that a few states have launched and most others salivate to replicate. A perfect item for the Digest.

The problem is that big initiative never actually happened.