Study: Biotech presence still small

While biotechnology employers are among the top targets for economic development in northern Nevada, a study by University of Nevada, Reno, researchers finds that the companies are only a modest factor in the region today.

By the most recent count available, biotechnology jobs accounted for 85 jobs in the Reno-Sparks area and another 10 in Carson City, found the study by researchers Dan Stewart and Thomas R. Harris of the UNR University Center for Economic Development.

Those jobs created an economic multiplier effect that amounted to about $55 million a year in the Reno area, the researchers said. As the industry's workers spend their paychecks throughout the community, about 220 jobs in Reno and Sparks depend on the sector.

The biotechnology industry in Nevada is centered in Las Vegas, home to 77 percent of the sector's employment in the state. Those 500 jobs contribute more than $222 million a year to the Las Vegas economy as payroll dollars ripple through the area.

Stewart and Harris defined biotechnology jobs as those in fields that included manufacturing of drugs and medicines as well as research and development services.

By far, the largest portion of the biotechnology jobs in the state nearly 83 percent of the 654 positions are involved in manufacturing. The other 112 jobs are found in research and development.

Harris and Stewart noted that the U.S. Department of Labor has identified biotechnology as one of the fastest-growing industries, and its average wages that top $70,000 are 68 percent higher than the average pay for private sector jobs.

The Northern Nevada Development Authority has identified the sector as one of its targets for job growth in Carson City and neighboring counties.

The Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, meanwhile, includes biotechnology as one of the sectors in the life sciences industry that's one of its targets.

Low taxes and business costs in Nevada are an important factor when biotechnology companies make decisions about locating facilities, Stewart and Harris found in a survey of 31 companies in the sector last summer.

Those same factors are important in retention of existing biotechnology companies, the survey found.