Boston’s Research Universities Fuel Growth

Originally Published MX November/December 2001

BUSINESS PLANNING & TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

Boston’s Research Universities Fuel Growth

According to a recent report on the Massachusetts medical technology industry, the state’s concentration of medtech firms is matched or eclipsed by only three other places: the Chicago area, Minnesota, and California (though its size makes comparison seem unfair). The glut of world-class academic institutions (MIT, Harvard, and several other Ivy League schools within short driving distance) and their attendant teaching hospitals, combined with ample pools of venture and institutional investor capital (the latter in no small part from the cluster of major insurance companies in New England), make the Boston area a natural for medtech development.

As the region’s older manufacturing base continues to decline, medtech and other new industries are becoming even more important. This fact has not been lost on state officials. In a recent speech, Joseph D. Alviani, president of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC), an economic development organization