State Government Relations

The 2011 BIO International Convention brought together over 15,000 leaders from industry, government and academia who are working to solve some of the sector's biggest challenges. We were honored to host governors from 11 U.S. states as they promote their bioscience economic development endeavors.

BIO President & CEO Jim Greenwood and Tom Watkins, President & CEO of Human Genome Sciences and Chair of BIO’s Board of Directors, recently hosted a media briefing to recap our advocacy accomplishments in 2011 and lay out BIO’s policy priorities for 2012.

Aaron Miscenich, president of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center and chairman of LouisianaBio, discusses the bioscience economic development initiatives.

Jobs and salaries in this industry have substantially grown in the past ten years. To date, there are more than 47,000 bioscience companies and 1.4 million workers in the United States.

Pete Pellerito discusses what is being done to provide the workforce for this broad and growing industry.

BIOtechNOW’s Tracy Cooley talks to Dr. Schubert of the  Bioscience Association of West Virginia about biotech in West Virginia – major areas of growth, the outlook for growth of the industry within the states, and plans for the upcoming  BIO International Convention.

Despite the fact that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack believes that the regulation of genetically engineered agricultural products must be science-based, and that he has “no doubts about the safety of the products this system has approved and will continue to approve,” some state legislatures are considering bills requiring labeling for biotech-derived food. These bills defy existing science-based regulation and are wholly unnecessary.