The Biotech Story

Abstract

When the biotech industry burst on the scene in the 1970s, it was seen as a network of sexy start-up companies resting on the shaky foundation of venture capital. The firms tended to be small, with more than half employing fewer than 50 employees and 90 percent employing fewer than 500. In this “small but beautiful” environment, some of the most research-intensive work ever done by humans has been conducted. Just in the United States in one year, 1999, the biotech industry spent almost $11 billion on research and development. This money produced about 153,000 jobs in over 1,200 companies clustered in a few national regions—metropolitan Boston, Silicon Valley, Texas, and North Carolina’s Triangle area.