Support growing biotech industry

Iowa has long been a hub of innovation in the search for breakthrough medical treatments. Over the past decade, our state has been home to nearly 1,300 trials.

Unfortunately, the biotech industry here in Iowa and across the nation is facing many threats. Foreign competition is stronger than ever, and misguided policies at home threaten to undermine the industry's ability to find and develop new cures.

The industry's recent growth has been driven by deepening scientific understanding of how diseases progress. With this information, researchers have been able to develop new approaches to treatment. Today, 900 biotech drugs are in development. Many of them target deadly and debilitating diseases for which no new treatments have emerged in years, if ever.

This research pays off not only in medical breakthroughs, but also in jobs and economic growth. Biopharmaceutical research companies are responsible for more than $3.4 billion of Iowa's economy, including 14,000 jobs. Job growth in this sector has far exceeded the state's overall employment trends.

Those clinical trials often rely on local research institutions to conduct tests, making them a good source of revenue for Iowa's medical schools, hospitals and clinical research centers.

Nationwide, the biopharmaceutical industry employs more than 800,000 people and indirectly supports an additional 2.6 million jobs. It is responsible for more than $789 billion of the nation's GDP, according to a report from Battelle, a research firm.

The U.S. biopharmaceutical industry invested $41.1 billion in research and development in 2011, more than twice as much as the next leading industry. The bioscience industry today accounts for one of every five dollars U.S. businesses devote to R & D.

The majority of multinational biotech companies have their headquarters in the United States, making the United States a world leader. American firms hold more patents than companies from any other country.

But past performance is no guarantee of future success. And right now the industry's future is under attack from several directions.

First is the fact that competition is growing. And increasingly, it comes not just from other developed countries, but from developing ones as well. These other countries recognize the importance of biotechnology to the future of their economies. They are offering encouragement and incentives to the industry. The United States, by contrast, often acts as if success is a given.

Battelle asked U.S. industry executives what they see as the big risks they face. The three most frequently cited were government payment policies, regulations and the need for strong patent protection. Few industries are more important to the economic and physical health of this country than biotech. It's time for policymakers to recognize as much and start looking for ways to remove needless obstacles to a sector of the economy that is in every way vital.

' Joe Hrdlicka is the executive director of the Iowa Biotechnology Association. Contact: joe@iowabio.org