Regional science policy and the growth of knowledge megacentres in bioscience clusters



Overall, the Lee and Walshok (2001) report concludes that the San Diego
biotechnology cluster is characterised by the following features:

400+ Companies

248 emergent firms

28,000 employees

UCSD CONNECT - ‘ a network of professional competencies focused on
building shared knowledge.... for technological companies’

UCSD, Salk Institute, Scripps Research Institute, Burnham & La Jolla
Institutes

an innovation support infrastructure of investors, consultants and technology
intermediaries

The judgement of Porter’s (2002) team is that the close proximity of research centres
and firms on the Torrey Pines Mesa was a key advantage in encouraging collaboration
and growth. Regarding patenting San Diego registered 360 patents in
biopharmaceuticals in 1997, a rate of 13.17 per 1,000 workers and the growth rate
was the US’s fastest, though the intensity was less than nine other bioclusters.

Venture capital was invested at a much higher rate than nationally with $421 million
having been placed 1995-99, nearly 10% of the national total. But research
organisations are the greatest strength, with Novartis and Dow having joined the
public institutes, making a total of some 16,000 employees in biopharmaceuticals
research alone, larger than that specific category in Northern California. However,
both Californian clusters have strongly emergent megacentre properties, based
especially on their strength in exploration knowledge and an abundance of SME
DBFs that are capable of rapidly forming molecular discovery networks due to
geographical proximity and critical mass. In the Orsenigo et al. (2001) study of
rational drug design research networks18% of interacting firms and institutes were in
Boston, 16% in Northern California and 12% in San Diego. The few partners outside
the USA were located in Munich (2), Cambridge (2) and Oxford (2).

This brings us neatly to brief consideration of the status of bioscience megacentres in
Europe. In terms of possession of the key exploration and exploitation institutes and
firms, it is clear from maps produced regularly by Ernst & Young, e.g. (1999) that the
greater London area has the greatest number of DBFs concentrated in an
agglomeration with few
exploration institutions south and west of London and two
clusters at Cambridge and, slightly smaller, Oxford where exploration and exploitation

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