The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council(MassBio®) today released its 2019 Industry Snapshot report, which shows that the Massachusetts biopharma industry experienced the highest year-over-year employment growth in over a decade, adding over 4,300 new jobs from 2017 to 2018 for 6.4% growth.
August 27, 2019 (CAMBRIDGE, MA) – The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council(MassBio®) today released its 2019 Industry Snapshot report, which shows that the Massachusetts biopharma industry experienced the highest year-over-year employment growth in over a decade, adding over 4,300 new jobs from 2017 to 2018 for 6.4% growth. Over the last 10 years, employment has grown 35%, adding nearly 20,000 jobs. When looking at just biotech research & development (R&D), employment growth is nearly 50%.
Investment in the industry has again reached an all-time-high, with $4.8 billion of venture capital (VC) investment in Massachusetts biopharma companies in 2018. Cambridge-based biotech companies received a disproportionate share of VC funds, grabbing 63% of all biotech VC investment to the state. When looking at the first two quarters of 2019, Massachusetts biopharma companies raised just under $1.5 billion – a dip from the first half of 2018. When looking at the IPO side, the numbers are strong:
- There were 18 IPOs from Massachusetts biotech companies in 2018, representing 31% of all US-based biotech IPOs. 78% of these were located in Cambridge.
- There have been 9 IPOs from Massachusetts biotech companies in the first half of 2019, 35% of all US-based biotech IPOs, suggesting a similar trend to 2018.
“The Massachusetts biopharma industry continues to grow and innovate at an incredible rate, creating both challenges and opportunities for companies who must fill their pipeline of talent to meet the increasing demands on their services,” said Robert K. Coughlin, President & CEO of MassBio. “We’re focused on efforts to support both the infrastructure needs of the Commonwealth in terms of employee housing and transportation, and also creative ways to ensure that a diversity of companies, from small startups to established biotechs, have the investments and resources they need to sustain this growth.”
Massachusetts-headquartered companies are directly impacting the lives of patients, with 37 drug candidates pending FDA approval, and 2,253 in the pipeline, representing 14% of the U.S. pipeline for new therapies. Massachusetts also continues to attract a greater share of public funding, with:
- Four of the top five NIH-funded independent hospitals.
- 56% of all NIH funding to independent hospitals.
- $1.28 billion to Massachusetts centers of Higher Education and Research Institutes in 2018.
The 2019 Industry Snapshot was produced in partnership with Evaluate®, the premier source for commercial analysis of the pharma and biotech sector. Snapshot statistics are compiled annually by MassBio from sources including Evaluate, National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages and others.
To download the full report, visit www.MassBio.us/Industry-
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