{"id":1122,"date":"2009-10-08T10:22:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T14:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/10\/08\/the-north-country-as-biotech-frontier-surprisingly-yes\/"},"modified":"2009-10-08T10:22:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-08T14:22:00","slug":"the-north-country-as-biotech-frontier-surprisingly-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/10\/08\/the-north-country-as-biotech-frontier-surprisingly-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"The North Country as biotech frontier? Surprisingly, yes."},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Three new research teams have just arrived; six more teams are being planned. <\/p>\n

These are high tech, cutting-edge jobs: the kind of employment that most small towns would kill to recruit.<\/p>\n

It turns out Saranac Lake isn’t unique.<\/p>\n

The North Country region has a surprisingly strong foundation in biotech and biomedical, industries that fly mostly under the radar.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Some of these facilities have become magnets for patients from outside the area (Canada, mostly) seeking specialized care.<\/p>\n

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). <\/p>\n

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

They produced a total of 1,944 jobs. Check out this conclusion, reached by the researchers:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The bad news is that since 2004, we’ve lost some companies — and we nearly lost the Rouses Point plant.<\/p>\n

That’s a sign that this industrial sector needs more attention, and more coherent planning and coordination. <\/p>\n

We have a regional tourism council. Why not a regional biotech consortium? <\/p>\n

This would allow for better networking among professionals who can feel isolated in this rural area.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

These are resources that most rural communities just can’t muster.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

We should redirect the resources necessary — government grants, tax incentives, etc. — to build on that success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been reporting this week on the surprising vitality of Saranac Lake’s Trudeau Institute, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}