Hundreds of companies and thousands of scientists, from lone entrepreneurs to the employees of large firms, are finding strength in numbers and a common voice for their political and professional concerns through affiliation with the growing number of biotech trade associations being formed at the state level .
In the past five years, biotechnology firms in 16 states have organized their own trade associations. Their work parallels on the local level the efforts of the two Washington-based national biotech organizations, the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA) and the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC). And the ranks of these trade associations are growing as biotech companies continue to cluster and create industrial centers (see map and list on page 5) throughout the nation. Pennsylvania, for example, has an estimated 26 biotech companies, New York has 33, and Texas 31.
These state-based trade associations take on missions that, because of their proximity and ...
