Hmm. Does your research show that any of the more expensive newer “biotech” treatments provide more than 6 months of quality of life improvement?

Can you provide the sum total of the billions of dollars that have gone into the creation and sustenance of the biotech industry? And what has been the return of investment?

Also, how many the local non-profits (Hutch excluded) provide improvements in health and quality of life for local residents?

Washington state has the highest incidences of MS, Breast Cancer, etc…

We need to investing these billions in WA state public health issues and providing large increases in continuum of care, rather than an emotional investment in the highest of high risk biotech which is most prevelant in WA state.

But public health, uncompensated care, local clinical trial base, better translational research with existing drugs, local manufacturing base, early diagnosis with least expensive technologies are boring, “non-sexy” issues with nonexistant lobbying and no press conferences…

There are many many reasons to support biotech. But “jobs” simply isn’t one of them. (Or at least not a major one.) Attempts to sell it on that basis are not just ill-conceived, they’re misleading.

Take a look at some state workforce forecasts — the national ones look just the same: http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu/demand.pdf