Partnership prez: NYC should do more to attract biotech jobs.

Calling the biotechnology industry a major potential generator of jobs and economic activity for the city, New York City Partnership & Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Kathryn S. Wylde urged the public sector to aid in efforts to make New York a leading biotech center, during testimoney before the New York City Council's Economic Development Committee at City Hall this week.

"There is a tremendous, but as yet unrealized, opportunity to establish the city as one of the three leading commercial biotech centers in America," said Wylde.

Citing a market demand study the Partnership and its affiliate, the New York City Investment Fund, completed last year, Wylde noted that the city's top medical institutions already spawn approximately 30 start-up biotechnology companies every year, but few of these companies grow here in New York. According to the study, the reason is that New York City lacks commercial office and laboratory facilities that are affordable to young companies. The study concluded that, over the next five years, New York needs to develop one million SF of affordable space, which will seed a biotech industry.

"We believe there is a unique opportunity to get this initiative started in Lower Manhattan, where we have some 20 million SF of vacant commercial space as a result of the attack and where the federal government has committed funds to promote economic recovery and rebuilding," Wylde testified.

But the biotech plan should not be limited to Lower Manhattan. "There are other communities throughout the five boroughs that are also seeking to participate in this new growth industry. The experience of the Sept. 11 attack has reinforced something that advocates of the five boroughs have long argued -- it is important to the stability and future of our city's economy that we diversify our centers of employment," Wylde continued.

The New York City Partnership currently is working with New York's leading academic medical centers and AMDeC, an umbrella organization for the city's medical research organizations, to promote a biotech cluster as part of the redevelopment of Downtown.

The Partnership also supports development of commercial biotech projects in other parts of the city, including the East River Science Park on the New York University Medical School and Bellevue campus and developments proposed for the Northeast Bronx near Einstein Medical Center, in Brooklyn at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, as well as new phases of Columbia's Audubon in Washington Heights and inclusion of biotech in the development of Queens West in Long Island City.

The City Council, said Wylde, can aid the creation of biotech clusters by supporting the planning and organizing of these facilities and by giving budget support to organizations pursuing these opportunities.