Bring on more centers of biotech success. Here’s how.

Leaders from Baltimore, New York, and Phoenix recently announced plans to turn their cities into biotech innovation hubs that rival Boston and San Francisco.

It’s easy to see why politicians would want to emulate these hotbeds. The life sciences attract the kind of skilled workers and high-paying jobs that can ignite any regional economy.

Of course, creating such a nerve center is easier said than done. I’ve spent most of my adult life in biotech hubs, from my graduate-student days at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., to working for major pharmaceutical companies, biotech startups, and venture capital firms on both coasts. I’ve learned what works, and what doesn’t.

Transformation is possible — with the right policies in place and an eye toward diverse workplaces.

The first step for local leaders is to identify existing institutions that can anchor the project. They’ll have specific areas of expertise, which can help shape the vision for any new hub.

North Carolina’s Research Triangle, for example, is based around three universities: UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and NC State. Starting in about 1960, planners set out to attract companies that could build on university lab work and translate basic research into practical technologies.

In the 1990s, Research Triangle became a center for outsourced contract research and clinical trials, drawing on analytical and statistical expertise from the local universities. Today, Research Triangle is the fourth biggest life-science hub in the country, according to the trade publication Fierce Biotech.
The second step for local leaders is to eliminate regulatory and financial barriers to innovation. Here, Boston is instructive.

Greater Boston, which includes Cambridge, was already home to MIT and Harvard when the Cambridge City Council voted in 1977 to permit and regulate DNA experimentation. Until then, would-be entrepreneurs had been nervous about how this cutting-edge field would be treated by the legal system and society. The Cambridge law gave them the certainty to move forward.

The ensuing explosion in bioscience activity continues to this day — so much so that Massachusetts accounts for about 15 percent of new drug development in the United States and 7 percent of the global total.
In addition to providing transparent and consistent regulation, cities and states can remove obstacles to innovation by providing tax breaks, loans, and grants to help companies get off the ground.
For example, Illinois recently pledged $25 million in state support to the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, which aims to tackle cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. And the Dallas City Council awarded $8 million, along with tax incentives, to add new laboratory space to a life-science campus.

Of course, not every would-be biotech nexus will have the exact same needs. Boston and San Francisco are the top two biotech hubs in the country, but benefit from different incentive structures. California has several types of official benefits to biotech companies, including a sales tax exemption on equipment and a tax credit for research and development. Massachusetts provides both of those, plus state grants and angel funding for emerging companies. Policymakers have to determine what kinds of enticements are right for their local economies.

But perhaps the most critical ingredient for building an innovation hub is a skilled workforce. That requires policies that grow and support a robust talent pipeline.

Specifically, academic institutions and companies need to engage with a diverse array of potential life-science students early in their lives. My own interest in biotech might not have come about had I not been invited, at 16, to participate in a program for high schoolers at MIT. As a girl growing up in Puerto Rico, this opportunity opened new doors. Since then, as a leader and investor at various companies, I’ve seen how the right corporate culture allows early-stage startups — the lifeblood of innovation hubs — to succeed.

To recruit talent for the long-term, businesses need to welcome individuals of all backgrounds. Multiple studies have shown that companies with diverse executive teams on average significantly outperform those without. Policymakers should consider providing grants, event space and other benefits to networking groups that promote recruitment from all backgrounds —  like Latinos in Bio, OUTBio, Women of Color in Pharma, and many others.

Lawmakers should also work toward a national funding package for regional biotech R&D. This funding would connect and support researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors, so that groundbreaking ideas are free to flourish in more communities across the country.

The best path to biotech success will be different for each city. But by building on institutional strengths, investing in workers, and knocking down barriers to success, there’s no reason more of them can’t get there.

Grace E. Colón, Ph.D, has over two decades of biotechnology and entrepreneurship experience. The former president and CEO of InCarda Therapeutics, she currently serves on the boards of the MIT Corporation and several public and private biotechnology companies.