Sanofi Chief Likes Bay State Biotech

Sanofi-Aventis sign, just outside of the Bridgewater, NJ,
facility on Route 202/206 south. (Bergeron Image)

New Jersey may be the pharmaceutical capital of the east coast, if not of the entire United States, but it’s getting plenty of competition from the Boston area, especially in the market segment of biotechnology. 

Boston has caught the eye of Sanofi chief executive, Christopher A. Viehbacher who, while addressing The Chief Executives’ Club in Boston characterized the Boston-Cambridge area as having “the most fertile environment in the world today,” as a result of  “its innovation ecosystem,” which Viehbacher attributes to “the area’s dense cluster of universities, hospitals, biotechnology start-ups, and venture capital firms.”

That’s very sobering news for New Jersey, because it may very well be true.  Yet, I hope it is not, because it’s already costing New Jersey jobs, something that you may not be fully aware of.
 

As a result of its acquisition of Genzyme, Sanofi is closing a Bridgewater research lab and moving its functions to Cambridge.  This means that expansion in that promising biotech market segment is not likely to happen here.

It’s not hard to understand the magnet-like pull that Massachusetts exerts on technology firms:  The colleges and universities in the Boston metro area are a fertile breeding ground for innovation.

There is no dearth of previous examples:

• Kenneth Olsen, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of Hewlett-Packard) developed a testing device while at MIT’s Lincoln Labs and parlayed that into a worldwide company that became the leader of the minicomputer industry.  DEC employed tens of thousands of employees worldwide.

• Dr. An Wang, born in Shanghai, China, invented the ferrite core memory used in early computers.  After studying electrical engineering in his home country, he emigrated to the U.S. and earned a PhD in applied physics at Harvard.

• “The doctor” as he was fondly referred to by his employees, formed Wang Laboratories, a company that produced the first programmable calculators, and later moved on to other hi-tech markets.

• Fidelity Investments, with headquarters in the center of the Hub, is the largest privately owned mutual fund company, and ranks among the biggest administrators of retirement fund accounts.

• And then there is Genzyme . . . .

The vitality and effectiveness of Boston’s brainpower as a major stimulating factor in creating and nurturing new markets funded by venture capitalism cannot be overlooked.

We are in a stiff competitive battle with other states, and it’s easy to lose jobs to other jurisdictions.  That’s why New Jersey has to get its act together and to keep on improving business conditions so that The Garden State is viewed as an attractive place in which to do business.