Fresh Profile: The California Biotechnology Industry

Published on 2008-03-10

Biotechnology is often referred to as the industry of the future. But in California, that future is now. The economic statistics are surprising and compelling:

• Nearly half of all U.S. biotechnology venture capital investment is in California ($3.2 billion in 2006). The passage of Proposition 71 in California in 2004 also authorized $3 billion in funding over 10 years for stem cell research.
• Right now, there are more biotechnology jobs in California than film industry jobs. About 270,000 people are directly employed by CA biotech companies. On average, California biotechnology jobs pay over $70,000 a year.

Led by companies like Amgen in Los Angeles, the pharmaceutical sector has also played an important role in the creation of California jobs in biotechnology. However, the two California cities with the largest biotech clusters are San Diego and San Francisco.

San Diego Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Industry Employment

San Diego's biotech cluster was named number one in the country in 2004 by The Milken Institute, and many of California's pharmaceutical jobs are located there. Over 500 biomedical companies are based in San Diego. Major companies operating in the city include Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Gen-Probe. Some of the leading providers of San Diego pharmaceutical jobs include Alliance Pharmaceutical, La Jolla Pharmaceutical and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. According to the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, there were nearly 40,000 biotech jobs in the area as of 2005, creating an annual economic impact of $8.5 billion.

San Francisco Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Industry Employment

The San Francisco metro area biotech cluster consists of over 800 companies, including Genentech, the company that founded the biotechnology industry in 1976. Over 85,000 biotech and pharma jobs are based in the Bay Area, and the region's public bioscience companies have a total market capitalization of nearly $100 billion. According to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the biotechnology industry in the Bay Area is directly or indirectly responsible for the employment of 250,000 people. Some of the major biotech companies operating in the region include Sirna Therapeutics, Amgen, Gilead Sciences and Bayer.

If you're searching for biotechnology or pharmaceutical jobs in California, New York or anywhere in between, Fresho.com is a great place to start. Whether you're looking for biotech sales jobs, pharmacy technician jobs or opportunities in clinical research, Fresho has the fast, free and effective tools you need for a successful job search.