Arizona added jobs in its biosciences sector during the post-recession period of 2009-2010, according to a report issued today in Phoenix.
From 2009 through 2010, bioscience jobs increased by 7.4 percent, compared to a 1.8 percent decline for the state's overall private sector, according to an annual report commissioned by the Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation.
The annual study by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice found that since 2002 Arizona has outpaced the nation in generating bioscience jobs and firms, and in winning National Institutes of Health grants, the gold standard for biomedical research funding. And venture-capital funding, long a challenge for Arizona's bioscience sector, was on an upswing in the past year, Battelle found.
"Through the most trying economic circumstances of our lifetimes, bio in Arizona more than held its own," Walter Plosila, senior advisor to the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, said in prepared remarks.
Since Arizona's Bioscience Roadmap was launched in 2002, bioscience jobs in the state have grown 41 percent to a total of 96,223, versus 11 percent growth for the nation as a whole, Battelle said. Those jobs pay average annual wages of $55,353, 29 percent higher than the overall average for private-sector wages in Arizona.
Plosila will present the report along with some findings specific to Southern Arizona at an event in Tucson on Thursday.
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