Woes for Mass. biotech council

The $1 billion linkurl:life sciences initiative;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53359/ posed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is dealing with some scrutiny lately. The new president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council faces a state ethics investigation about his transition from the public to the private sector, and has declined to publicly discuss the bill. Massachusetts Biotechnology Council President Robert Coughlin has announced he will not publicly discuss the bill, since, as a former state employee (he was a state representative from Dedham and the governor's undersecretary of business development) he cannot lobby the legislature until next year, according to the Boston Globe. He said he plans to avoid lobbying the state government until September, one year after he joined the council, and will focus his lobbying at the federal level, where he has no restrictions. Also linkurl:according to;http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/11/30/for_biotech_chief_mums_the_word?mode=PF the Globe, Coughlin continued acting as Patrick's point person on the life sciences initiative without telling his bosses that he was also vying for the presidency of the council, which comes with a $500,000 salary. He is facing a State Ethics Commission investigation about his hiring. Coughlin's predecessor, Thomas Finneran, linkurl:stepped down;http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/politics/view.bg?articleid=1047330 in January when he pled guilty to obstruction of justice, about false testimony he gave in 2001 over voter redistricting. It was recently revealed that he received a performance bonus of nearly $50,000.

Woes for Mass. biotech council

The Scientist ARCHIVES

Become a Member of

Meet the Author

Alison McCook

Related Research Resources

Bunsen Burners and Bad Hair Days

Research Resources

Podcasts

Webinars

Videos

Infographics

eBooks

Taking the Guesswork Out of Quality Control Standards

PFAS: The Forever Chemicals

Unlocking the Unattainable in Gene Construction

Comparing Analytical Solutions for High-Throughput Drug Discovery

Products

Product News

Thermo Scientific™ Centrifuges with GreenCool Technology

Singleron Biotechnologies and Hamilton Bonaduz AG Announce the Launch of Tensor to Advance Single Cell Sequencing Automation

Zymo Research Launches Research Grant to Empower Mapping the RNome

Cytosurge Appoints Magid Haddouchi as Chief Commercial Officer