B.C.’s biotech industry needs thousands of workers over next six years

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A biotechnology forum hosted by Stuart McNish and Conversations that Matter on Tuesday heard 16,000 additional workers are needed for Metro Vancouver’s biotech industry by 2030.

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The forum comprised Suzanne Gill, president and CEO of Genome B.C.; Andrew Booth, chief financial officer at AbCellera (a Vancouver biotechnology company that helped produce the first antibody drug approved to treat COVID-19); Allen Eaves, president and CEO of Stemcell Technologies; Brenda Bailey, B.C. minister of jobs, economic development and innovation; Darryl Knight, president of Providence Research and Wendy Hurlburt, president and CEO of Life Sciences B.C.

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Bailey said the government had recently released its Life Sciences and Biomanufacturing Strategy that found the local biotech industry and its 18,0000 workers were “punching above” their weight. Based on growth projections, it’s estimated the sector needs another 16,000 workers over the next six years.

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She said the provincial and federal governments had funded a national biotech training centre and that government wanted to do more to attract biotech workers and to retain locally-grown scientists.

Eaves suggested opening another school of medicine in B.C. to attract researchers, with those workers ultimately fuelling research crucial to the local biotech centre.

The forum compared B.C. to Ireland, which has been working on its biotech since the 1970s and is now a major international drug maker. Ireland has far fewer companies than B.C.’s 1,200, but employs more workers and has a much larger economic footprint.

Gill said the local industry needed to create a cohesive vision and have all sectors — companies, investors and government — on board.

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Booth said he had visited biotech companies in San Francisco and Boston where half the employees were Canadian.

“We need great companies here to give them meaningful jobs,” he said.

Knight said there were hundreds of clinical trials conducted in B.C. every month, but they were mostly stage two and three trials. Bailey said the government was working on attracting more stage one trials.

Hurlburt said a focus was needed to retain and return Canadians scientists to the province.

dcarrigg@postmedia.com

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