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In the race to generate high-paying jobs and underwrite local prosperity, regional leaders from across the U.S. are fighting hard to lure what many believe is the economic growth industry of the 21st century – biotechnology.

According to this study, only a handful of metropolitan areas have succeeded on a scale necessary to ensure industry sustainability. At the top of that list is San Diego, followed closely by Boston and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro area. Another nine are in the running.
“Clusters of existing and emerging science-based technologies are crucial factors in shaping the economic winners and losers of the first half of the 21st century,” the authors state in the report.

“To create international comparative advantage in a knowledge-based economy, clustering innovative activity is imperative.”

According to the study's Biotech Index, the top 12 metros (and their composite scores) are:

1. San Diego (100)
2. Boston (95.1)
3. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (92.5)
4. San Jose (87.8)
5. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett (83.8)
6. Washington, D.C. (79.4)
7. Philadelphia (76.5)
8. San Francisco (75.8)
9. Oakland (74.3)
10. Los Angeles-Long Beach (66.5)
11. Orange County, CA (54.1)
12. Austin-San Marcos (47.8)

The rankings are based on two broad factors:

The biotechnology innovation pipeline – infrastructure that allows a metro to capitalize on its biotech knowledge and creativity, such as the quality of its workforce and amount of research and development dollars it receives; and

the current impact assessment – an area’s success in bringing ideas to the marketplace and creating companies, jobs and products.

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