Looking at tomorrow’s election, there doesn’t seem to be much at stake for the state’s scientists. Funding for NIH and NSF comes out of DC and tends to win bipartisan support. While conventional wisdom says the GOP is more likely to reduce spending, no one wants to go home and say they cut funding for scientific research. And, pharma, patient groups and universities have some heavy hitting lobbyists on the Hill to keep that cash coming in.
But, it is hard to say whether Governor Deval Patrick’s Life Science Initiative will survive if he doesn’t win. Republican challenger Charlie Baker claims the state is unfriendly to business. But, Patrick’s is spending millions on in tax breaks and other incentives to get life science companies to expand and move to the state. Baker has been silent on the $1 billion, ten year program, which is scheduled to run until 2016. Whether that happens may depend on tomorrow’s outcome.
More below.
A small group of supporters greeted Baker Wednesday at the Bleacher Bar at Fenway Park. Baker came to make his case for how bad things are in Massachusetts.
“We lost jobs in August, and we had the single biggest job loss that we’ve had in Massachusetts in 20 years,” he said….Baker said he would solve that problem by reforming state government and cutting spending.
Patrick, who prefers to talk about the state as a glass half-full, began Wednesday at Novartis in Cambridge. He was there to celebrate plans by the Swiss pharmaceutical company to add up to 300 jobs in Cambridge.
Patrick said the expansion is due in part to the “life sciences initiative,” one of his signature spending programs, which provides tax incentives to companies like Novartis.
· Xconomy interview with Susan Windham-Bannister, the chief executive of the Life Sciences Center,
· Mass High Tech story on the debate sponsored by biotech companies. The heat came from debate over the ban on gifts from pharma to docs.