2006 Rural Partners Forum
Remarks by Leslie Alexandre
Let’s talk first about what biotech is, just to make people feel a little bit more comfortable, because there is nothing magical about this word. There is a lot of magic in what it can do for our economy and a lot of reality. ‘Bio’ means life, and ‘technology’ means tools, and when people talk about biotechnology, it’s not really talking about an industry per se. It is talking about tools that are based on living cells and the molecules inside those cells that are used to develop products that deal with all kinds of problems and all kinds of issues that cut across so many of our basic industries in this state. So, we are talking about the application of these scientific tools to agriculture, as we just heard, to human health, to animal health, marine science, forestry, challenges in the environment. Why is biotechnology a great fit for North Carolina? Because North Carolina is a state of natural resources. In the western part of the state, look at the Appalachian Trail. There is more biodiversity, more native plants, along the Appalachian Trail than almost anywhere else in the world. There is something like 2,500 different species of plants that are now being evaluated to understand the medicinal properties of those plants. So biotechnology is a natural fit in our state.
As we heard from Lynne Scott Safrit, the president of Castle & Cooke, North Carolina is the third leading state in this country for biotechnology companies and jobs. It is no accident that we are in that position. We have over 350 companies that spread across the state. And, yes, there is a large concentration of them in the Triangle and in the Triad. I assure you, there are research and development companies that are in every part of the state, as there are manufacturing companies, and that is growing. And why is it growing? How does what we are doing in North Carolina differ from what other states and other regions are doing? Well, we are number three after California and Massachusetts. I tell people that the growth in those states was organic. It was not a collaborative effort. It wasn’t a focused plan that led to what happened in those states. It was a lot of great science and research, just as we have here, and it was a lot of money. A lot of the money made in the high-tech world in the Bay area went into biotechnology. But if you ask companies there, what is the engagement of the community? If you ask what kind of help they get from their economic development community or from their state or local leaders, they’ll tell you, “not very much.” In some cases, the business environments and climates in those states are not nearly as favorable as what we have here in North Carolina. It was organic. It was destined to happen.
What we do is work in partnership with our incredible universities that are turning out world class research in every part of the state. We already have 50,000 workers directly employed in biotechnology related companies. Now, why is that important and what does it mean? Well, first of all, we have five other jobs created for every biotechnology job in the state, and that’s been pretty well documented. North Carolina has one of the highest multipliers in the country. So we are creating not just those immediate jobs, which on average pay over $70,000 a year. When you look at it, there are so many aspects of biotech that we can’t possibly talk about all of it.
I want to focus on the part most relevant to rural counties in this state. Some of you may have seen this document before. This is part of that planned initiative in biotechnology. This is a strategic plan for growing the economy statewide through biotechnology. This plan, which was commissioned by Governor Easley two-and-a-half years ago and participated in by 120 North Carolinians across this state, lays out a series of strategies to continue to build on our leading position in biotechnology. We are really known as a global leader in our planned initiatives to develop biotechnology, which is probably the most coveted form of economic development globally right now. There are three priority areas in the plan: one is to continue to create and grow and attract entrepreneurial companies; second is to take it statewide; and third is to target biomanufacturing.
How have we done that? Well, the leadership for this was certainly the funding that was provided and the plan that was developed under the auspices of the Golden LEAF Foundation, which said to industry, “If you think you need this, show us. Do a business plan, and don’t just do the plan and cut out, you better stay and participate every step of the way.” A lot of people think you need a Ph.D. to work in the biotech industry, but what we know and what the community colleges in particular have capitalized on is that biomanufacturing represents one of the greatest opportunities for taking our manufacturing work base and retraining them and retooling them to work in these incredible facilities.
Two-thirds of the people who work in those facilities only need to have a minimum of a high school education, and they need months of training on top of that. They don’t have to have a Bachelor’s Degree. They don’t have to have a Masters or a Ph.D. Now, a third of the jobs require that higher education, and this training initiative is training all the way through from entry level through the Ph.D. scientists in a collaboration involving North Carolina Central, North Carolina State and several of the community colleges. Right now, we are already turning out hundreds, several hundred trained workers every year. And when this is fully built, when the actual buildings at North Carolina State are finished, we will train 2,000 to 3,000 workers every year.
There is something going on in every part of this state in biotechnology. We have offices at the Biotech Center in place, and I tell you, what our people are learning as they meet with our universities and our business leaders and our economic developers is that there is something going on in biotechnology in every one of your areas. That doesn’t mean you are necessarily going to have the new Novartis plant, for example, that went to Holly Springs. Not every county in this state is going to have a 500 or a 1,000 person biomanufacturing facility, but every county has something that can contribute and create jobs or create the related jobs for biotechnology. So, I’m very enthusiastic about what is going on. Thank you.
