Industry Impact

The biopharmaceutical sector has a positive impact in the U.S. by providing jobs, economic output & clinical trial data. Beyond these traditional indicators, however, its full economic footprint can be measured in part by its impact on the vendors, large and small, that provide services or supplies to America’s biopharmaceutical research companies.

To provide insight into the breadth and depth of the industry’s direct impact, We Work For Health gathered 2022 vendor and supplier expenditure data from 15 biopharmaceutical companies in 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

U.S. ‘Industrial Bioeconomy’ Adds $210.4B and 643,992 Jobs, Says Report; Georgia in Top 10

Biomanufacturing advocates released a new report that provides a closer look at the employment, wages, and economic activity driven by the U.S. industrial bioeconomy. Authored by TEConomy Partners, the report, “The Economic Impact of the U.S. Industrial Bioeconomy,” illuminates an increasingly important segment of the U.S. economy associated with biomanufacturing and bioproducts (those other than food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals).

Included in the report are state and federal figures for economic activity tied to the transformation of renewable biomass into fertilizers, bioplastics, biofuels, bio-lubricants, and a host of other industrial bioproducts, as well as the research and development of microbes, enzymes, biocatalysts, and other technologies used in modern biomanufacturing. 

Every two years, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) publishes a biennial BIO Economic Development Best Practices Report that catalogs state and regional economic development initiatives. The best practice examples contained within this report highlight the critical facets that foster high-performing industry and the long-term success it has maintained.

The report reaffirms that successful industry development initiatives are built upon the following four key building blocks for company creation and expansion:

Access to angel and venture capital

Workforce development initiatives

Technology Transfer Systems

State of the Art facilities

Investments in these 4 areas yield results. The bioscience industry’s total economic impact on the U.S. economy, as measured by overall output, totaled $2 trillion in 2016. This impact is generated by the direct output of the bioscience industry combined with the indirect (supply chain) and induced (employee spending) impacts.

Since it was established more than 75 years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has focused on issues of global health significance.

CDC’s Center for Global Health (CGH) 2022 Annual Report highlights how our work with global health partners and other U.S. government agencies addresses global health threats. This report, titled "Center for Global Health: Making an Impact Through Global Partnerships," outlines CGH's collaborative efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and promote health equity and capacity development. The report emphasizes the importance of global partnerships by highlighting field experiences and success stories.

Themes featured in the report include:

1. CDC’s Technical Expertise and Partnerships Promote Health Security and Global Good: CDC experts, both in-country staff and subject matter experts from across the agency, provide specialized scientific and program support to country and regional partners, multilateral organizations, and other U.S. government agencies to detect, prevent and control emerging diseases, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental disasters.
2. Global Programs Help Countries Adapt to COVID-19: Decades of collaboration with partner countries and multilateral institutions on global health security have helped serve as strong foundations for COVID-19 pandemic response efforts around the world.
3. CDC Provides Technical Assistance to COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout: CDC’s global COVID-19 activities help enhance response capabilities and simultaneously build long-term, sustainable capacity for response to future highly communicable diseases.

As the nation’s leading public health agency – and the only U.S. government agency with global reach and an exclusive focus on public health – CDC is uniquely positioned to lead many critical aspects of the U.S. government’s effort to address the world’s leading health challenges.

This latest annual report highlights CDC’s commitment to advance health equity principles and approaches within and throughout global science, interventions, partnerships, policies, and infrastructure.

Georgia is one of the nation’s leading global health and life science centers, with a critical mass of bioscience organizations and companies leading innovations for the industry.

• Thriving life sciences industry segments, led by research & development
• Concentration of life sciences talent with more than 26,000 professionals
• World-class colleges and universities supplying a robust pipeline of talent and research capabilities
• Unparalleled support for new life science operations including a pro business climate
• World-class transportation infrastructure

The life sciences industry is fueling business growth and real estate demand around the world, and 2024 will be no exception. Advances in biotechnology, medical devices and consumer products are focused on unmet medical needs and advances in sustainable materials. While the past year has been hard on the small-cap biotech industry, life sciences stock indices such as XBI and NBI showed noticeable improvement in late 2023 in line with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The 2024 Feeding the Economy report clearly demonstrates that America’s food and agriculture sector is a thriving, integral component of the U.S. economy with economic output growing by more than a trillion dollars since the 2023 report. These industries directly support nearly 24 million jobs (over 15% of U.S. employment) and are responsible for more than $9.6 trillion of the country’s economic activity – that’s 20% of total U.S. output.

New approaches are required at almost every level of the economy. Biotechnology has the potential to be a transformative asset in this struggle, offering vital contributions to near-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and revolutionary tools to avert catastrophic climate change in the longer term. New biotech tools, including gene

editing and synthetic biology, can be transformative climate solutions in key emerging industry sectors. Policies supporting the development and deployment of biotech climate solutions should be part of any government effort to address climate change.

Biotechnology can achieve at least 3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent mitigation annually by 2030, using existing technologies, and emerging biotechnologies could have transformative GHG benefits in a range of industrial sectors. Biotechnology can deliver vital climate solutions in four key areas:

• Producing sustainable biomass feedstock
• Empowering sustainable production
• Developing lower carbon products
• Enhancing carbon sequestration

The third annual report that examines diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the biotechnology industry launched today at the 2022 BIO International Convention. The report, “Measuring Diversity in the Biotech Industry: Tracking Progress in Small and Large Companies”, investigates the state of DEI in the biotechnology industry and includes representation data, current DEI approaches and initiatives, and data comparisons to previous reports.

This assessment—conducted on behalf of and in close collaboration with Georgia Bio—represents a biennial update regarding the competitive position and performance of the state’s life sciences industry and the innovation ecosystem in which it operates.

This report includes key findings on:

• NIH Funding
• University Life Sciences R&D
• Venture Capital Investments
• Clinical Trials Activities
• Patient Activity
• Workforce & Talent Demand