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More details have been revealed about the new biohealth tech hub, which is projected to create around 141,000 jobs over 10 years, with most of those jobs expected to be in supply chain, service industries and restaurants that will benefit from the economic growth.
Eighteen public and private organizations, including the Medical College of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Area Technical College, will pool $49 million in federal funding for a biohealth hub centered on personalized medicine, a new form of medical treatment based on an individual’s unique genetic makeup.
The funding, announced by the US Department of Commerce earlier this month, is aimed at encouraging and supporting research, manufacturing and hiring, with a total of $504 million awarded to 12 “tech hubs” across 14 states.
Wisconsin, Indiana and New Hampshire will focus on biosciences and medicine, while other states will pursue clean energy, microchip manufacturing and climate-resilient infrastructure.
Lisa Johnson, CEO of BioForward Wisconsin, a Madison-based organization founded in 1987 as the Wisconsin Biotechnology Association, said the technology hub designation recognizes decades of work and achievements in biosciences in Wisconsin.
“We had great research institutions. We had great private sector entrepreneurs. And yet we still weren’t recognized. … We’re not San Francisco. We’re not San Diego. We’re not Boston,” Johnson said.
Workforce Development Key Part of Wisconsin’s Biotech Hub Plan
Much of the funding will be directed toward workforce development in Milwaukee and Dane counties, which have the largest concentration of health sciences companies and institutions in the state.
“Jobs, jobs and more jobs. That’s what a tech hub means for Wisconsin,” U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said Monday while touring the Milwaukee Area Technical College.
“Whether it’s a high-tech lab, behind a computer or in a foundry, our tech hub will create all kinds of opportunities in growing sectors for Wisconsinites,” she said.
Over its first 10 years, the hub is projected to create 30,062 jobs in personalized medicine, including 11,673 in targeted radiation therapy and 12,792 in genomic medicine, an emerging field of medicine that can predict whether someone is likely to develop a genetic disease in the future, even if they don’t yet have symptoms.
The jobs projections come from an analysis by America Achieve, a New York firm that looked at industry data and projected compound annual growth rates over the next 10 years, information Wisconsin submitted in its application for federal funding.
“We really focused on our areas of focus,” Johnson said.
But of the 141,262 jobs projected to come from the tech hub, about 79 percent, or 111,200, will be indirect jobs, which could come from a range of occupations, including supply chain and service industries, construction, and even hotels and restaurants that benefit from the economic impact of bioscience companies and institutions.
According to the 2022 BioForward report, for every biohealth job, 1.5 additional jobs will be created.
“The biohealth industry’s direct, indirect and induced economic impact to the state totals $32 billion,” the report states.
Exact Sciences and Promega Drive Economic Growth in Madison Region
For example, Madison has seen strong economic growth driven by companies and organizations such as Exact Sciences, Promega, Illumina, Accuray, and University Research Park.
“The multiplier effect has always been extremely strong in this industry,” Johnson said.
But some have questioned whether the $49 million in federal funding was necessary, given that the industry already employs about 52,000 people in the state, is experiencing double-digit employment growth and is home to some of the state’s largest businesses and public agencies.
“Why would we need more taxpayer money, especially when the amount is so tiny compared to existing investments?” said Patrick McIlhan, policy director at the Badger Institute, a Milwaukee-based conservative policy think tank.
Plus, “it’s hard to evaluate the proponents’ promises without sufficient evidence to back them up or to show that this isn’t just calculating growth and investment that would have happened in Wisconsin anyway,” McIlheran said.
“It’s worth remembering that four-fifths of the promised jobs are ‘indirect,’ so the 10-year new jobs figure is roughly equivalent to the job growth Wisconsin experienced in the five years prior to the pandemic,” he added.
Milwaukee could benefit from cancer screenings and job training
The Milwaukee-based Medical College of Wisconsin plans to use some of the funding to develop mobile cancer screening units in underserved areas of the state.
It’s not yet clear how much the university will receive, but the plan is intended to address health care disparities in low-income areas of Milwaukee and other areas home to underserved populations.
The initial tests will be for lung, colon, breast, prostate and liver cancer. Officials will be going door-to-door to inform people about the programme.
“We plan to be in the community in the summer of 2025,” said Mara Lord, senior vice provost for university engagement and strategic planning at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Powered by GE Healthcare technology, the services will include mammography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) onboard the fleet, with the goal of building a CARE Scan model that can be deployed nationwide.
In Milwaukee alone, there are thousands of people who are not covered by the health care system and are unlikely to have access to cancer screening and treatment. “We need to go out and engage with them,” Lord said.
Cancer screening will be used to build a tech hub database
The test will collect data from a diverse population to support researchers and entrepreneurs in biosciences and contribute to a privacy-compliant database that is part of the Technology Hub.
“The big opportunity is that we can validate and really advance personalized medicine in a way that others can’t,” Lord said.
Milwaukee Area Technical College says it will soon be able to expand its biohealth job-training programs thanks to federal funding. It’s not yet clear how much of the funding the college will receive, but it could be used to train lab technicians and specialists in radiology and medical device manufacturing.
The university will work with companies to assess needs, said Sheldon Garrison, a biotechnology specialist specializing in genetics and personalized medicine at mental health services provider Rogers Behavioral Health and an adjunct instructor at MATC.
According to Bioforward, the median wage in the biohealth field is $96,000 per year, and all of the career paths covered offer higher than average wages.
More than half of the jobs, such as lab technician, do not require a bachelor’s degree, as does machine operator in medical device manufacturing.
“They are the unsung heroes of biohealth and precision medicine. They are the ones who manufacture parts for the cutting-edge medical devices and diagnostic tools used by healthcare professionals,” Garrison said.
WRTP Big Step, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit that aims to connect people with jobs that can support their families, will also be providing training, said Lindsay Bloomer, president and CEO.
Part of that could be a focus on apprenticeships. “We think these are very meaningful positions,” Bloomer said.
Opportunities for young people include technology bootcamps and short-term training programs that lead directly to employment.
“We’re really focusing on young people and adults who may not have even considered these as a future career. There’s a generational opportunity to get started now and stay in the field until retirement,” Bloomer said.
Indiana has a similar goal but its employment projections are more modest.
Indiana’s Heartland Bioworks Tech Hub, like Wisconsin’s, was awarded $51 million in grants in areas such as workforce training and partnering with bioscience entrepreneurs and manufacturers.
Indiana is home to Eli Lilly, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the United States.
The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point for biotechnology’s power to solve emerging problems, but it also revealed national security risks to America’s reliance on overseas drug manufacturing, according to the Institute of Applied Research, which oversees Heartland Bioworks.
Nationwide, there were 323 drug shortages in the first three months of this year, surpassing the previous record of 320 in 2014, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
According to a 2021 White House report, about 73% of factories that manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients registered with the FDA are located outside the U.S. An active pharmaceutical ingredient is the essence of a drug — acetaminophen, for example, is the active ingredient in Tylenol.
“We recognize the importance of domestically producing the most critical parts of the biotechnology supply chain,” said Andrew Kosak, vice president of partnerships at the Bloomington-based Institute for Applied Research.
Nearly all antibiotics come from China.
“When it comes to reshoring technology, nothing is more important than biosciences – it’s a technology field that is literally a matter of life and death,” Kosak said.
Bioworks is projected to create more than 9,000 jobs over 10 years, excluding indirect jobs as figured by the state of Wisconsin.
With a projected shortfall of at least 2,200 biomanufacturing workers per year in Indiana, highlighting the need for additional training, a former General Motors plant in Indianapolis will be converted into a bioscience research facility with classrooms and space for startup companies.
Bioworks says it plans to provide skills training to at least 1,000 people per year by 2029.
“We’re actively looking for opportunities to partner with a hub in Wisconsin. We think it’s important for us in the Midwest to work together,” Kosak said.
