Joey Von Nessen is an economist who has been researching the life science industry in South Carolina. He joined me to talk about the growth and economic impact of life sciences on the South Carolina economy.
When we look at what's been happening over the last several years, it’s just the rapid expansion of the industry itself. And if we look in the Southeast and put these numbers in context, we find that South Carolina has seen the fastest growing life science industry since 2017 in the Southeast. And one of the reasons for that is because it is a smaller industry and it's been really blossoming in recent years. But also because of all the efforts of SCBIO and others and the infrastructure and competitive advantages that South Carolina offers.
Joey described the factors that support the demand for that growth, some of which is related to demographics.
Every demographic trend at US level is more acute in SC than the national average:
Older
Military
Retired
And a lot of retirees are moving to South Carolina creating a larger demand for healthcare.
We also talked about other factors that help to support a growing life science industry. While we typically think of big university clusters in biotech, R&D is only part of the value chain. Joey described infrastructure, land availability for manufacturing and a strong technical college system that can be a good starting point for a growing life science sector.
Joey at University of South Carolina
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Marketing a Region: Growing Life Science in South Carolina