What are the benefits of the ISM?

As proposed, the ISM will: Grow the Economy – Provide 234 high wage jobs by 2011 with an average wage of $71,818 Support Education - Give preference to local graduates Create the highest concentration of biomedical research in the Spokane region Initiate programs in Genomics, Epigenomics and Systems, Chromosomal and Computational Biology Construct research cores in DNA Sequencing, Expression Profiling, Cytogenetics, Bioinformatics, and Molecular Diagnostics Leverage, at a steady state (year seven) 2.5:1 funds that are provided by state and local sources Commit to forming five companies during its first seven years Fill ten of the twenty planned faculty positions through joint appointments with the founding partners Disease focus will include: cardiovascular, cancer, neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases

art of the mission of the ISM is to play an important role in the creation of a local knowledge-based economy by stimulating biomedical discovery and commercialization in cooperation with its partners. This mission is not unique to the ISM when compared to other similar institutions; rather the ISMs organizational model is a proven catalyst for economic growth through biomedical research. In 2002, the city of Phoenix made a significant commitment to the development of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) which has leapfrogged the community to the forefront of biomedical research and innovation. The communitys financial investment in TGen, a nonprofit biomedical research institute focused on bringing better diagnostics and targeted therapeutics to cancer patients, has been extremely successful in serving as a research anchor that has spurred significant biomedical activity in a previously barren environment for this industry. A recent economic impact study revealed that TGen garnered a substantial return on investment for the state of Arizona in its first four years of operation, creating a current four-to-one return with an expected $202.4 million annual return in 2025 with over 3,000 jobs created and $16.6 million in total tax revenue.

The thriving economic activity generated by these institutes, in regions such as in Arizona or San Diego, has motivated state and local governments around the country to make significant infrastructure investments in order to support these entities as part of the development of their biosciences sector. One example is the $510M state and local incentive package to attract Scripps Florida, a unit of the San Diego-based Scripps Institute, to Palm Beach County. To date, the institute has hired 160 scientific staff; and the Governor has proposed a $250 million Innovation Incentive Program to pursue similar ventures in the future.

The bioscience industrys impact on local economies is best demonstrated by multiplicative statistics which illustrate the magnitude that employment, wages, and output within the industry ripple throughout economic sectors within the region. For example, there are approximately 1.2 million bioscience jobs in the U.S., and while still a small portion of all U.S. employment, it is estimated that these have generated an additional 5.8 million jobs in the economy, resulting in a total employment impact of 7.0 million jobs. In addition to creating new jobs, the economic ripple effect of bioscience is activated by increased wages. For example, the average wage of a bioscience worker in 2004 was $54,775, $26,000 greater than the average private sector wage. BIO additionally reports that real increases in bioscience wages have grown over 4 times more quickly since 2001 than the average private sector work in the U.S. Furthermore, throughout the country bioscience has also become a significant catalyst for entrepreneurial activity as innovative technologies are commercialized.

In recent years, the Inland Northwest, particularly Spokane, has made significant strides towards establishing the infrastructure that would support a reinvention of the regional economy. Spokane's unique and collaborative assets, including research universities and health care providers, provide a necessary platform to build a bio-cluster. The challenge for Spokane, specifically, and Eastern Washington as a whole, is to actively continue to invest strategically in knowledge and deeply rooted, immobile assets in order to gain the critical mass necessary for robust economic revitalization. Spokane is well-positioned to garner an influential stake in the emerging bioscience economy, but we must continue to invest in the key infrastructural elements; building our research and development capacity is a necessary component in that process.