Eddie Pauline, BioOhio President & CEO

Appreciating Making and Creating in Ohio

Ohioans have a lengthy history of manufacturing – of being the muscles that produce. We have the workforce to build the things our world needs and the logistics and transportation systems to efficiently and effectively ship those things where they need to go. Ohioans also have a lengthy history of innovating – of being the minds that invent. I celebrate the makers, of course, and as we all should.

But I have been thinking a lot about the inventors and about our state’s legacy of developing solutions and answers to some of life’s biggest problems. How do we position Ohio as a place that makes things AND creates things?

All too often, Ohio’s inventors get overlooked, especially in the conversation around how Ohio’s economy develops and grows and the kinds of jobs we want to create here. Our life sciences industry both innovates and manufactures very well. And while we are not the only example of this, I think the life sciences can provide an interesting case study for our state as we think about how to grow our economy.

Let’s look at what happened when research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital around limb-girdle muscular dystrophy led to the creation of Myonexus Therapeutics. Myonexus started as a spinoff and was then acquired by Boston-based Sarepta Therapeutics. Sarepta invested $30 million more and opened a new Research and Development Center of Excellence in Columbus creating hundreds of new jobs and even more research.

There are other stories, too. The innovators of AtriCure, now a growing public company, started Enable Injections, which has raised more than $300 million. And CoverMyMeds, bought by McKesson for $1.4B, created the foundation for dozens of employees to go off and start other fast-growing digital health companies. Research and innovation investments here allow us to make things here, as these and other companies have proved time and again.

The numbers on this are very clear: Ohio is a place where companies or research organizations can both make something and develop it. Manufacturing accounts for 12.6% of the jobs in our state, according to the most recent data collected by the state. Education and health account for 16.8%. Manufacturing jobs declined more than 30% from 2000 to 2019. Education and health jobs were more than 38% during that same time.

BioOhio, of course, collects numbers, too, and we see big growth in research and development. And we know jobs in the life sciences are a win for Ohioans: our research shows that bioscience jobs pay approximately $34,000 more per year than the statewide average of $50,502.

I don’t think this has to be a one-or-the-other choice. We can be both innovators and makers – both the people who come up with brilliant new technologies and treatments and the people who build and produce them. We have to be willing to pursue, incentivize, and reward creativity and invention in our plans for economic growth.

As always, I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have.

Eddie Pauline
President & CEO
BioOhio