Alex Philippidis Senior News Editor Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

GEN shows you where careers are made.

More and more people are finding themselves migrating to different regions of the U.S. to find work, and people in the biopharma and biotech industries are no different. GEN has already written about what skills an R&D researcher should have and which biotech jobs will be most in demand over the next decade. Now, the question is, where are these jobs? In which regions are you most likely to find work in your field? Before you pack, you may want to take a look at the below list of regions with biopharma clusters ranked by number of jobs based on 2009–2010 data.

#10. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA

2010: 9,048

2009: 9,071

Year-to-year job gain: -0.25%1

#9. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX

2010: 10,113

2009: 10,447

Year-to-year job gain: -3.20%1

#8. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA

2010: 22,147

2009: 21,354

Year-to-year job gain: 3.71%1

#7. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA

2010: 28,581

2009: 34,035

Year-to-year job gain: -16.02%1

#6. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy MSA

2010: 36,412

2009: 35,989

Year-to-year job gain: 1.18%1

#5. San Diego region

2010: 40,372

2009: 36,379

Year-to-year job gain: 11.0%2

#4. Los Angeles County

2010: 42,383

2009: 43,923

Year-to-year job gain: -3.51%3

#3. San Francisco Bay Area

2010: 51,255

2009: 51,945

Year-to-year job gain: -1.33%3

#2. North Carolina

2010: 58,495

2009: 57,053

Year-to-year job gain: 2.53%4

#1. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA

2010: 78,960

2009: 76,394

Year-to-year job gain: 3.36%1

References:
1 U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns database.
2 BIOCOM 2012 Southern California Economic Impact Report published by BIOCOM, the life science industry group for the San Diego region and southern California.
3 2012 California Biomedical Industry Report, published by California Healthcare Institute, BayBio, and PwC U.S.
4 North Carolina Biotechnology Center, BioSciNC company surveys as cited in “Response to NER Request,” Feb. 8, 2011.

Job data for some clusters have been furnished by regional groups as indicated. For regions lacking such data, GEN used a formula developed by MassBio which weighs seven occupations (listed by NAICS code) based on whether all or some professionals are likely to be working for biopharma employers. The seven NAICS codes employed are:

NAICS 3254: Pharmaceutical MFG, including biologics (100%)
NAICS 541711: Research and Development in Biotechnology (100%)
NAICS 541712: R&D in Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except biotech) (22%)
NAICS 334516: Analytical Laboratory Instrument MFG (30%)
NAICS 54138: Testing Laboratories (30%)
NAICS 622: Hospitals (4.5%)
NAICS 61131: Universities (1.9%)

Employment data for each NAICS code can be found for each state, metropolitan statistical area (MSA), or micropolitan statistical area in the U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns database, which is publicly available here.

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