"Until recently, when I thought `biotech company,' I pictured a research firm with a handful of employees," says William Small, the newly appointed executive director of the Association of Biotechnology Companies, a Washington, D.C.- based industry group. But Small says that a recent cross- country tour of the industry helped him replace that outdated image with a truer picture of biotechnology in the 1990s.
"I was amazed to see so many [companies] in the 300- to 800- employee range," he says, "and more are gearing up to this stage all the time. It's grown from an industry employing 10,000 in the early to mid-'80s to one with over 50,000 employees today."
Product development activity beyond the research stage is accelerating throughout the biotech industry, according to a report issued recently by the accounting and financial services firm Ernst & Young, headquartered in New York.
The firm found that 80 percent ...
