Maryland is promoting itself as a place for biotech companies to put down roots, Stat News reports, adding that it has had a mobile billboard marketing the state driving around Cambridge, Mass.
This, it adds, is part of a push to sell Maryland to burgeoning companies by touting its warmer climate, lower rents, and closeness to the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. "The primary goal is to get Maryland's message in front of decision-makers for startups and small and medium-sized companies in our target industries," Allison Skipper Mayer from the Maryland Department of Commerce tells Stat News.
Other places like Rhode Island, New York, and San Francisco have also been positioning themselves as biotech spots, Stat News adds. Bob Coughlin, the president and CEO of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, tells it other states have tried to repeat what Massachusetts has done and that he welcomes any "efforts that strengthen the life sciences industry."