The idea that Cleveland is a burgeoning biotech and healthcare hot spot has been touted ad nauseum by city leaders and the media in recent years. But it turns out that this particular why-we-should-feel-good-about-the-future stance isn’t true.
Despite the Clinic, UH, and Metro; despite the biotech companies and incubators here, our city doesn’t make the cut for a spot among the top-10 life science bastions in the country.
And the news gets worse: Despite the Med Mart hype Cleveland doesn’t rank as one of the top emerging life science hubs either.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 6, 2011.
Build it and it will come. The research is based on lagging indicators. I know pessimism is your stock in trade for an entertainment medium but trivializing major building blocks such as our hospital systems when trying to build something positive in this town should at least warrant a disclaimer. If Scene was the only news medium you would think we live in a giant mud puddle with the best restaurants west of Youngstown.
I have to agree with you, Tilted. Positive thinking and support for a city like Cleveland makes far more sense than looking at some list of the top ten cities and saying that’s that. Why even suit up? Let’s just let some research media tell us we are nothing and may as well do something like count food trucks instead of pursue something so out of our reach as life science and medicine. Positive thinking is needed and negative thinking is not any help. ‘why we should feel good about the future’ stance isn’t true. So we should feeel like shit about the future, Maude?
On the other hand..any interaction and response on any news story is good. Any communication is better than none, and any comments are better than none. I do think that it is time for the Scene to start getting more response and comments from the public. When the article which gets the most response is about a lady knocking the little guy out of the boat while driving, perhaps a new topic of interaction might be more productive.
We read all the comments and appreciate them. With this news item, because the local mainstream media has done plenty of positive reporting on our growing biotech industry and our undeniably influential health systems, I was reporting that there is an alternative viewpoint out there. Readers are entitled to learn of opposing views, regardless of how they like them. A journalist’s job is to present the differing views (and at Scene and Heard we often do that with a bit of snark) and let the reader decide what they think. And as mentioned–we do like reading what you think!
Totally true. As a former employee of that industry, I can tell you that there just isn’t the critical mass to have a true hub of biotech. Part of the problem is that the institutions (Case and the Clinic) still don’t know how to treat entrepreneurs. The companies that are here are small fish in a tiny pond. I will root for the industry every day, but I’m not sure that the industry itself is served by the overhyping of the companies that are here. It comes back to education, capital and brain drain.
Great points Michael, Maude. Now we have some kind of idea what is missing–Money, education and the entreprenourial spirit, what needs to be done to help fill those voids?
What can the media do to help move this life science forward in Cleveland and the region? What can the educational system do to become more of an important part of this opportunity?
And what lower level jobs can be created to help people? And what leaders do we have in Cleveland who can move toward a goal without an immediate return on investment? And what help can be given by the local and national governments? And what aspects of the life sciences and bio-tech opportunities are most available? What opportunities exist which require little investment and much sweat-equity? And how do we use (perhaps) the most important life resource we have in Cleveland (other than people)? Lake Erie is the very cup of the Great Lakes. It has the life giving fresh water which will one day be more valuable than oil. We have one billion humans on earth who do not get safe drinking water and thus live a life of flu-like symptoms. Water purification tablets and education so far as location of water is being done by many charitable organizations…How do we get people safe drinking water? Many things will follow that goal where all social progress is concerned in all elements of our cultures and populations of life.
Cleveland is not a big anything but a slum