The North Country as biotech frontier? Surprisingly, yes.

We’ve been reporting this week on the surprising vitality of Saranac Lake’s Trudeau Institute, where more than 140 people work to advance immunological research.

Three new research teams have just arrived; six more teams are being planned.

These are high tech, cutting-edge jobs: the kind of employment that most small towns would kill to recruit.

It turns out Saranac Lake isn’t unique.

The North Country region has a surprisingly strong foundation in biotech and biomedical, industries that fly mostly under the radar.

Hospitals are the largest private sector (albeit non-profit) companies in the North Country, and they’re perennially hungry for nurses, doctors and lab techs.

Some of these facilities have become magnets for patients from outside the area (Canada, mostly) seeking specialized care.

We also have thriving research and manufacturing companies, from the Bionique Testing Labs (Saranac Lake) to Akrimax Pharmaceuticals (Rouses Point) to NuMED (Hopkinton) to AngioDynamics (Glens Falls).

This might startle you: A 2004 study by the state of New York found that there were 45 firms in the region that fell under the “bio/pharma” category.

They produced a total of 1,944 jobs. Check out this conclusion, reached by the researchers:

The North Country showed the greatest regional specialization of any part of the state, with three and one-half times more employment in the industry than would be expected from national level data.

Surprising, eh? In a region that we associate more with cows, tourists and trees, a lot of our best jobs come from this very next-generation industry.

The bad news is that since 2004, we’ve lost some companies — and we nearly lost the Rouses Point plant.

That’s a sign that this industrial sector needs more attention, and more coherent planning and coordination.

We have a regional tourism council. Why not a regional biotech consortium?

This would allow for better networking among professionals who can feel isolated in this rural area.

It would also help give the global industry a clearer picture that this is a place where top notch research and manufacturing are happening now.

The fantastic news is that we have the education and research institutions — from Paul Smiths College to St. Lawrence and the SUNY campuses — to support the industry.

We also have schools like North Country Community College that are perfectly positioned to train locals in the kinds of lab and technical skills needed to work in these facilities.

These are resources that most rural communities just can’t muster.

The bottom line? Unlike most of rural America, the North Country is tentatively (and organically) building the kind of economy that will survive the death of traditional manufacturing.

We should redirect the resources necessary — government grants, tax incentives, etc. — to build on that success.

Tags: adirondacks