Oregon officials have been debating for some time whether they will practically be able – as Seattle has started to do – to get in on the next generation of high-tech activity: biotechnology. The signs have looked good, but the results haven’t been there.
Till Friday. That was when the California biotech firm Genentech said it would set up a substantial shop at Hillsboro, eventually hiring 200 to 300 people to staff it. Specifically, the company “announced its decision to acquire land in Hillsboro, Oregon for the construction and development of a biotherapeutic fill/finish manufacturing facility, which is expected to be licensed and operational in 2010.”
Those jobs, which likely will pay well, are significant, but much the smaller part of the importance of this. (Though Fortune mangazine has named Genetech number 1 on its list of best American companies to work for.) The Beaverton-Hillsoboro area already has many of the components you’d need to make biotech go: It has Intel, loads of other tech development, and major medial research and provision organizations (notably the Oregon Health & Sciences University) in the immediate vicinity, and all the big-city resources that could be needed right over the mountain in Portland.
Now, with the arrival of a major corporate biotech presence – and Genetech is a major operator in the field – the engine may have what it needed to start turning.
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