News & Press

On June 16, at Boston's Joslin Diabetes Center, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed into law the state's landmark Life Sciences Initiative (LSI), then immediately flew to San Diego with legislative leadership to tout the plan in front of the world's biotechnology industry at the BIO 2008 International Convention.

Unprecedented in scope in the annals of Massachusetts politics and policy, the LSI - through which the state will invest at least $1 billion in its surging life sciences sector over the next decade - is expected to strengthen the Commonwealth's global leadership position in such fields as biotechnology and medical devices.

On Wednesday, April 23, the U.S House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of legislation that would once again let MBC member companies with venture capital funding compete for federal small business grants. The final tally was 369 - 43 in favor of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Reauthorization. SBIR grants had been an essential source of early stage funding until 2003, when a Small Business Administration rules change barred some companies with venture backing from program participation. In last week's decision, eight of the ten House members from Massachusetts voted in favor of the MBC position rescinding that rules change and prohibition against venture capital backed firms.

In the Message of Hope radio series, you hear real stories of three Massachusetts researchers and a clinical trials manager who work each day to produce cures for unmet medial needs. These talented individuals come from a cross-section of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council Membership (MBC): an academic research institution, a small biotechnology company with 15 employees, a medium sized, public biotechnology company pushing for their first product, and a large biopharmaceutical company working on its next promising therapy.