NEWSCLIPS
Patrick keeps a promise to the biotech industry
Governor set to sign $1b benefit plan
By Todd Wallack
Boston Globe
June 16, 2008
When the world's biggest biotechnology trade show opened in Boston last year, Governor Deval L. Patrick unveiled a bold proposal to pump $1 billion into the state's growing life sciences industry over the next decade.
Today, Patrick is headed to this year's convention in San Diego to tell biotech executives he is finally delivering on that promise. Read more >>
Mass. governor signs life
sciences law before conference
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Associated Press
House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, Nobel Prize winner Craig Mello and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft joined the governor as he signed the landmark legislation at the Joslin Diabetes Center. Kraft has funded medical research, and Mello is a University of Massachusetts researcher who won the 2005 Nobel Prize for medicine. Read more >>
Life sciences industry lauds Deval Patrick
$1 billion biotech measure sets Massachusetts apart
Boston Herald
By Christine McConville | Monday, June 16, 2008
What a difference a year makes.
Last May, Gov. Deval Patrick announced ambitious plans for an economic stimulus package to position Massachusetts as a leader in the life sciences industry.
Today, he is expected to make good on that promise, by making that stimulus package a law. Read more >>
$1B Life Sciences Plan Now Law
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON, JUNE 16, 2008…. Massachusetts has offered the life sciences industry $1 billion worth of incentives over the next decade, hoping that cutting-edge companies can offset losses in more traditional industries and develop innovative medical technology, as Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday signed into law his signature economic development priority. Read more >>
Life sciences bill could boost region's economy
Eagle Tribune
June 15, 2008
By Edward Mason
BOSTON — A $1 billion bill, aimed at making Massachusetts a leader in the cutting-edge life sciences industry, could create thousands of jobs locally and fund a long-envisioned Interstate 93 interchange project.
The life sciences bill, a key part of Gov. Deval Patrick's economic strategy, will be signed into law tomorrow, just before the governor and top state lawmakers jet off to the Bio2008 conference in San Diego to pitch Massachusetts as a place for life science companies to prosper.
Read more >>
Mass. Life Sciences Center Creates
Scientific Advisory Board
Peer review board to be chaired by
renowned researcher Dr. Harvey F. Lodish
BOSTON (March 26, 2008) – The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) today announced the creation of a Scientific Advisory Board to provide scientific and technical advice and oversight, and to ensure scientific credibility and transparency for the Center’s activities and grant-making decisions. The Center has appointed Dr. Harvey F. Lodish, Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology and of Bioengineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to chair the new board. Read more >>
State House News Service
March 26, 2008
Personnel File [Excerpted]
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board has appointed MIT scientist HARVEY LODISH as chair of its Scientific Advisory Board. Lodish is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a professor of biotechnology and bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The advisory board is charged with making investment recommendations to the center board, the governor and the Legislature. Lodish plans to recommend a list of 12 advisory board members from academia and the venture capital and pharmaceutical industries over the next several weeks. "Our C-list would be the envy of most states," said Lodish.
Life sciences grant program launched in Mass.
NECN
February 13, 2008
(NECN) - Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and other state officials announced Thursday the launch of $12 million grant program to help spark life sciences research in the state. Read more and watch video >>
State Leaders: Billion-Dollar Life Sciences Bill Remains A Work In Progress
By Catherine Williams
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON, FEB. 11, 2008....As his $1 billion life sciences proposal continues to undergo committee review, Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday he has been "continually assured that the bill is on track for passage soon." The bill was outlined last May and filed last September. Read more>>
Stalled Life Sciences Bill Affecting Search for Life Science Center Director
By Catherine Williams
State House News Service
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, DEC. 18, 2007...A languishing life sciences bill is hobbling an administration-led recruiting effort to hire a life sciences guru to head up a new center dedicated at making state-funded life sciences research and industry investments, state officials say. Read more >>
Lawmakers Say Patrick's Life Sciences Bill May Be Unbalanced
By Michael P. Norton
and Jim O'Sullivan
State House News Service
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, DEC. 17, 2007.....Top Patrick administration officials on Monday defended Gov. Deval Patrick's $1 billion life sciences industry bill against claims that it was unconstitutional, favored out-of-state companies, and offered preferential tax treatment to one industry but not others. Read more >>
Better deal elsewhere would lure Mass. life-science firms
The Boston Globe
BUSINESS IN BRIEF
December 12, 2007
More than three in four life-sciences companies would consider leaving Massachusetts, according to preliminary results of a Massachusetts Life Sciences Collaborative survey. The survey found 78 percent of respondents would consider leaving, and 63 percent have already been contacted by other states about moving. The majority of respondents said the state could help them stay put by offering increased tax credits and other financial incentives, better transportation, low-cost space, and improvements in infrastructure. Companies said Massachusetts is attractive because it has a strong workforce and resources for research, but is also expensive. The survey comes at a time when lawmakers are considering Governor Deval L. Patrick's $1 billion proposal to boost the life sciences sector. (Todd Wallack)
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center in the News
Genzyme expansion in jeopardy
$260m Framingham plant faces hurdles on water, sewage capacity
By Todd Wallack, Boston Globe | November 21, 2007
Genzyme Corp., one of the state's largest biotech companies, has quietly drafted plans to build a $260 million biotech drug manufacturing plant in Framingham, similar in size to the one it built in Allston 11 years ago. Read more >>
Life sciences memorandum could sub for bill
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON, NOV. 19, 2007….If the Legislature does not approve timely pieces of Gov. Deval Patrick’s $1 billion life sciences plan before breaking this week until January, Beacon Hill leaders could enter into a unusual memorandum of understanding promising legislative benefits to a small number of companies. Read more >>
Together again, leaders optimistic on life sciences bill
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, NOV. 7, 2007….Reprising the scene of togetherness when they joined six months ago to announce the plan, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi stood Wednesday with Gov. Deval Patrick to play down differences over his $1 billion life sciences bill, but reserved their rights to make changes. Read more >>
Guv Asks for Help on Life Sciences Bill, Senate Prez Sees ‘Legislative Input’
State House News Service
October 3, 2007
Gov. Deval Patrick asked biotechnology industry leaders to help him push lawmakers to pass his $1 billion life sciences plan, which faces review from lawmakers who are talking more openly about expanding its scope to other industries, with House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi saying Wednesday he wants a version of the bill finalized within two months. Read more >>
State taps NY firm to hire life sciences director
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology
September 13, 2007
Massachusetts state officials plan to spend $75,000 to hire an executive director of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which is expected to manage a $1 billion fund dedicated to growing the life sciences industry in the Bay State. Read more >>
Life Sciences Board Pushes Ahead on Stem Cell Registry
By Gintautas Dumcius
The State House News Service
September 13, 2007
“As Gov. Deval Patrick's request for funding to fuel a first-in-the-nation stem cell bank awaits legislative action, the administration is fast-tracking a proposal for an international stem cell registry and setting the stage to move quickly on the proposed bank at UMass Worcester.” Read more >>
Broad Massachusetts Life Sciences Workforce Study To Begin
June 8, 2007
To ensure that Massachusetts has the skilled workforce it needs to sustain its life sciences supercluster, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council boards voted yesterday to fund the Life Sciences Talent Initiative, a broad life science workforce study conducted by the UMass Donahue Institute that will guide the state for the next decade. Read more >>