At noon tomorrow, Tuesday, January 16, New Jersey will see the swearing-in of Governor-Elect Phil Murphy as the 56th Governor and Lieutenant Governor-Elect Sheila Oliver as the 2nd Lieutenant Governor. The Senate and Assembly members of New Jersey's 18th Legislative Session were sworn in to office last Tuesday, January 9, with Senator Steve Sweeney (D- 3) and Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D- 19) installed as leaders of their respective Houses.
BioNJ offers our congratulations and best wishes to all who will lead New Jersey in the years ahead. We believe that we have the resources to build on our strengths and move forward to overcome the challenges we face.
The presence and strength of the biopharma industry is one of New Jersey's chief assets, and BioNJ has delivered a significant white paper to the Governor- and Lieutenant Governor-Elect that lays out how the biopharma sector can promote economic growth across New Jersey. "
The New Jersey Biopharma Industry: A Prescription for Growth,"
based on broad and deep analysis, as well as widespread input from members of the ecosystem, offers pragmatic recommendations for growing the industry in the Garden State and for strengthening New Jersey's competitiveness.
BioNJ is proud to note tha
t the white paper's recommendations have been endorsed by these organizations:
Intense Focus on Biopharma in New Jersey
BioNJ's white paper is one of three major life sciences initiatives currently underway. The others are the activities of the New Jersey Biotechnology Task Force and the formation of a new Assembly Committee on Science and Technology. All three initiatives will provide an in-depth look at industry activity in the State and recommend measures that will strengthen and grow the industry.
"New Jersey has long been a critical economic engine for the United States, and the biopharmaceutical industry has been an important source of the State's growth for generations," said BioNJ President and CEO Debbie Hart. "
As one of the top 10 innovation hubs in the world, New Jersey employs over 200,000 highly educated life sciences workers and is the operating base for over 3,000 life sciences establishments, with more than 1,000 drugs in development by those companies. In fact, in 2017 alone, companies with a presence in New Jersey accounted for nearly 50% of new drugs and therapies approved by the FDA."
BioNJ Recommends Specific Action to Strengthen the Industry
For all its strengths, however, New Jersey's biopharma sector has not grown at the same rate as the industry has grown in the United States overall in the last decade. The paper sets forth several reasons for this:
- Fewer early stage start-up companies
- Less federal and venture capital funding
- Fewer academic-public sector research partnerships
- Higher operating costs for business
BioNJ's white paper notes that other states have successfully attracted biopharma companies through a mix of public, private and non-profit levers, including targeted investment. These investments often focus on biopharma and on job creation, rather than job preservation, thereby generating a higher return on investment.
The white paper draws on economic analyses, discussions with stakeholders from across the New Jersey biopharma ecosystem and case examples of other centers of activity in the industry. Given these learnings and New Jersey's context, this paper puts forth recommendations along four levers:
- Direct State government support of the industry, including targeted financial incentives, tax credits and funding private-public and academic commercial partnerships
- Promotion of life sciences innovation and investment in the State, including creating a new "BioPharma Super Cluster" as a hub of life sciences activity, most likely in North-Central NJ
- Making NJ the world leader in post-graduate and mid-career biopharma educational and training programs that focus on retraining for manufacturing and R&D jobs that will be critical for the next decade, and are in critical short supply (e.g., advanced drug analytics; translational research; commercialization)
- Strengthening New Jersey's brand, including increased promotion and marketing of the advantages of founding or moving a company to the State
Click here to download a copy of BioNJ's white paper. We welcome your comments and responses.
