Now, 25 years later, Genentech is but one of about 500 biotech firms that directly and indirectly account for some 120,000 jobs in the Bay Area. Most of the firms employ fewer than 49 people; Genentech, the largest, employs 3,000. The area's academic and research institutions provide work for another 10,000 people involved with life science projects.
The Bay Area Bioscience Center (www.bayareabioscience.org), which supplied many of the figures for this article, describes itself as "a public-private partnership and forum organized to strengthen the competitiveness of the region as the premier global location for bioscience research, education, and industry." According to Susan Day, president of the center, money from venture capitalists who helped the high-tech industry boom in Silicon Valley also helped biotech to boom in the Bay Area. The development of the NASDAQ, which somewhat parallels the same time frame, was also good fortune for biotech, she says. "[It] ...
