YPSILANTI ? Michael Witt, Executive Director of MichBio, the state?s Life Sciences trade association, delivered his fourth report March 8 at MichBio Annual Meeting at the Eagle Crest Conference Center. The transcript of his remarks follows:
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to present my Report to our members.
As your Exec Director, I am now starting my fourth year with MichBio, and believe that with a bit of historic perspective, I may report categorically that we have had some measure of success.
With respect to membership, last year I reported that we had 151 fully paid up institutional members. This year, I am pleased to report that we have increased our membership to 199 fully paid up members, a 24 percent increase. John Freshley told me yesterday that his new University of Michigan spin out company, Compendia, will be joining – and That Brings us to the 200 Mark. So thank you John. And Thank all of you for your support.
You will note that you have in your hands a copy of our 2nd Annual Membership Directory. This document was produced by the gracious support of MEDC, and several sponsors, including Grant Thornton, Pfizer, MPI Research, and Beaumont Hospital.
As an aside, during this Directory project, we extended our search far beyond our members, seeking to uncover Michigan?s hidden Life Science Companies.
What we discovered, after a 10 week, intense effort, was that the State of Michigan has 380 life science companies (device, diagnostic, pharma and biotech, including those in the supply chain, and excluding service providers). This means that we are behind only California and Massachusetts as sites for this industry. We are only a bit ahead of Illinois, and Pennsylvania, but far ahead of RTPark and Texas.
It also justifies our state?s investment in our life science industry. The 21st Century Jobs Fund, as you know, will invest $400 million in our industry over the next two years, along with homeland security, advance auto technology, and the like. Most of you look sufficiently bleary eyed to have been working on Applications for this funding. One of the principal architects of this legislation is Senator Valde Garcia, who is with us today to share a few words of wisdom about this effort.
We had some small role in its conception and execution. As you know, we support our legislative brethren through our work in Lansing. As a policy matter, MichBio serves as a technical resource to the house, senate, and the administrative arm of Gov. Granholm?s office. We are asked very regularly to advise our colleagues in Lansing, and while it is time consuming, it appears to be appreciated. The topics are typically quite challenging, but we draw upon our members to provide advice and support in this regard. Greg Aronin, from J&J, works with me as our Chairman of the Legislative Committee.
One upcoming issues of considerable import to our industry is the FDA Defense Law -this tort reform law, passed ten years ago, is under attack by a group supported by Geoffrey Feiger, called DIME. The present law attracts investors and companies to Michigan – the proposed revisions will make it open season on our industry for plaintiff lawyers.
We also held one of our CEO Roundtables in Lansing, last month, and had over HALF of the State Senators and Representatives stop by for a chat. Many of you appeared at the event, and got to see first hand the depth and breadth of support we have managed to assemble. The legislators trust us with taxpayer funds to stimulate the growth of our industry, and it is our obligation to grow our companies, hire Michigan citizens, and provide a return on investment.
You may also note from our Board membership that we have successfully diversified our activities, to reflect our member location, and the need for services. We now have Board members from every metropolitan area in the State, except for Flint and Battle Creek. From Detroit to Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor to Midland Bay/Saginaw, MichBio is busy finding out our members? problems, and developing ways in which to ease pathways to the marketplace.
Another successful member services initiative was launched this year, our MichBio Member Spotlight. This bimonthly newsletter has featured Pipex Therapeutics, Neogen, and now Asterand. It is designed as a detailed report on one member company, which we publicize heavily. If you wish to participate in this effort, please let us know. It is provided as a member benefit, is free, and is designed to have our members work with and buy from each other. The newsletter is produced by Mitechnews.Com.
In addition, last year we held our first ever MichBio Expo 2005, in Detroit. Nearly all of you participated. Much to our delight, the event was quite successful. Our friends Bruce Brock and Larry Stiffman conducted a detailed survey, which wee published on our website. The survey results reveal that the event was quite solid. We had 568 attendees, 110 exhibitors, a very successful partnering program, with 16 multinationals holding over 150 individual business meetings.
This year, on October 10-12, the 2006 MichBio Expo will be held in Grand Rapids. The first day, at Grand Valley State University, will be a career day for university students. Day 2 will feature special short sponsored programs for select topics, such as insurance, facilities construction, legal briefings. A reception will be held that evening for exhibitors and attendees. Day 3 will host various key note presentations, a series of business partnering meetings with invited multinational companies, and at least one sponsored research contract competition. You are all invited to sign up and participate.
Our Mission, of course, is to build the Life Science Industry in Michigan.
As a point of reference, The Board adopted a Strategic Plan three years ago to guide our growth and activities. Under the leadership of Randal Charlton and Dr. Ed Pagani, and their Predecessors Fred Reinhart and Steve Sensoli, we have met almost all of our short term objectives.
The challenge for you, as members, then, is to assist me in recruiting new members. We have about 55% of our state?s companies as MichBio members. Now, MEDC will be publishing this fuller list in its life science directory, which will be available at the BIO Annual Meeting in Chicago, on April 9-12. We will participate, as always, in MEDC?s booth, as will a number of you. It is an important meeting to attend, and we have sent out last week the train schedule to Chicago – the train is easy and convenient, and we encourage you to attend. We are willing to take along 100 pieces of information to distribute at the event, if you wish – please coordinate this through our office if you are not able to attend the event in person.
Also, and consistent with my notion that our role is to take on the thorny insoluble problems first, we are working with counties in the state, advising them on methods to improve the quality and extend of science education in our high schools. One proposed idea is to encourage university professors to team teach science courses with high school teachers in their area of specialty. This, along with our 8 MichBio Student chapters, is very much a community service function. The need to enhance job opportunities for students, and interest them in science, is of major importance to our future.
Our student chapters are thriving. We adopted a Speakers? Bureau this year, and seek all of your participation. This means that once a year, would you be willing to spend an hour once a year teaching college kids about your company, and your career. We have student chapters in place at Kalamazoo College, Saginaw Valley State, Central Michigan University, Western Michigan University, and of course, WSU, MSU and UM. Four additional chapters are at the Trustee level, s
