Ohio’s Assets Support Growth of State’s Biohealth Companies

Aaron Pitts – JobsOhio Senior Managing Director for Biohealth

Aaron Pitts.
JobsOhio Senior Managing Director for Biohealth.

Over the past few years, more and more health-tech, health care and biomedical companies have started calling Ohio home. This trend gives Ohio a growing and well-deserved reputation as a hot spot for biohealth companies and provides economic developers with some great talking points about our state.

Biohealth companies find what they need in Ohio – a comprehensive mix of assets that foster growth and success.

Ohio’s business environment, for example, is particularly attractive to biohealth companies. Its common sense regulatory environment reduces the complexity of running a business. The state’s favorable tax structure enables companies to spend less money on operating costs and more money on research and development. Ohio’s cost of living and cost of doing business are less than in traditional biohealth centers on the east and west coasts.

Ohio’s supportive and collaborative biohealth community provides biohealth companies the opportunity to partner with some of the world’s best research organizations, academic institutions and health care centers. Biohealth leaders often praise this type of cooperation, as it fosters innovation, increases the speed to market for new ideas and attracts additional biohealth companies to the state.

More than 200 colleges and universities in Ohio help fill the talent pipeline with well-educated workers. In fact, Ohio had 10,179 biohealth graduates in 2015, up 58 percent since 2006. The state also claims some of the nation’s best teaching hospitals, including

the Cleveland Clinic, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The job growth rate in biohealth is the second highest among all industries in Ohio. These assets help explain why companies like Alkermes, ProMedica and NuVasive choose to locate and expand in Ohio.

Alkermes, a global pharmaceutical manufacturer, recently expanded its plant in Wilmington.  Company executives chose to expand in Ohio instead of Dublin, Ireland, where it’s headquartered, because the state had a pool of available talent, a relatively low cost of doing business, and efficient and affordable access to world markets.

Toledo-based ProMedica, a nonprofit health care network, wanted to consolidate its 17 administrative offices spread throughout northwest Ohio. Company officials looked at sites in both Ohio and Michigan, but ultimately decided to build in downtown Toledo because they wanted to re-invest in the community in which the company was started. Toledo has the talent and business climate the company needs to grow.

Due to rapid growth, NuVasive needed a larger facility in which to research and manufacture its more than 90 medical device products. NuVasive wanted a tech-friendly community with access to top tech talent. It found that and more in West Carrollton near Dayton.

Alkermes, ProMedica and NuVasive are just three examples of hundreds of successful biohealth companies that are not only transforming health care, but also showcasing Ohio’s reputation as a leader in the biohealth industry