|
Along with the anticipated construction boost from the maturing of the Northwest's existing biotech industry, more projects could be coming from future biotech companies settling in the Northwest.
In recent years, Washington and Oregon economic development councils, government agencies and private developers have been working hard to attract more biotech firms and facilities in a competitive race with other states.
Years of research work in Washington and Oregon have developed a nucleus of innovators, created some of the world's most advanced laboratories and produced some of the biotech industry's most dramatic scientific breakthroughs. Reflecting the maturing of Washington's biotech industry, the Milken Institute has ranked the Puget Sound region as one of the top five biotechnology clusters in America, with 7,600 biotech employees in more than 65 firms.
For more than a decade, the University of Washington, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and private Canyon Park business center companies such as ICOS and Immunex have been Washington's bio-industry leaders. Since 1980, the state's research institutions, particularly the University of Washington, have attracted more than $19 billion to the state for research projects.
Snohomish County, north of Seattle, has 25 percent of all of the state's biotech and biomedical employees, working for such life sciences leaders as ICOS, Amgen, Advanced Technology Labs, Targeted Genetics, Combimatrix and SonoSite, primarily in Bothell's Canyon Park.
One of the most recent efforts to recruit more biotech businesses to the Puget Sound area is the development of the South Lake Union neighborhood in north Seattle. About 3,000 life science jobs have been established so far in more than 1 million sq. ft. of development, only half of the available space at South Lake Union.
By 2020, as many as 10,000 new housing units are planned for the neighborhood, along with 23,000 new workers - 35 percent of them in biotech. Vulcan, a development company owned by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, is the major player in the South Lake Union neighborhood.
Washington actively promotes biotech development by publicizing its absence of corporate or private income taxes, exempting capital investments by high-technology firms from sales taxes, providing credits against business-and-occupation taxes for research and development spending, and emphasizing the area's highly educated workforce and high-tech economy.
Other promoters include the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle, the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association and economic development councils for King, Pierce and Snohomish counties
|
print this page
e-mail this page
