A better explanation:
http://www.investor.reuters.com/learn.aspx?ticker=ZGEN.O&target=%2fstocks%2ffinancialinfo%2fratios%2fprofitmargin&page=learn

Biotech Firm and Labor Stats by Region

2005 biotech employment in seattle was 11.6k according to BLS, vs 68k in the bay area, 22k in San Diego, 16k in boston, 61k in LA, and 18k in RTP.

Seatte is firmly in the second tier and probably destined to stay that way given the sale of Immunex and the relative paucity of candidates in the pipeline for remaining local independents.

and FWIW I have worked in biotech (as a strategy consultant) and while it has been a few years it doesn’t look like much has changed.

That said, let’s try to keep the conversation civil.

Dave

I have no position in those companies nor am affiliated…

EBITD Margin (TTM) -112,743.80
EBITD – 5 Yr. Avg. -580.55

Operating Margin (TTM) -120,578.80
Operating Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -627.94

Pre-Tax Margin (TTM) -144,383.80
Pre-Tax Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -766.99

Net Profit Margin (TTM) -144,383.80
Net Profit Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -766.99

Gross Margin (TTM) -551.14
Gross Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -144.95

EBITD Margin (TTM) -706.88
EBITD – 5 Yr. Avg. -202.71

Operating Margin (TTM) -742.11
Operating Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -219.04
Pre-Tax Margin (TTM) -718.35
Pre-Tax Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -211.64

Net Profit Margin (TTM) -718.35
Net Profit Margin – 5 Yr. Avg. -211.64

Correct, I am ignorant regarding Biotech in Seattle. I already told you that. I’m not in Biotech. I have never been in biotech. I will never be in biotech.

So, in order to support YOUR statement that Seattle is a biotech hub, please provide some current (and correct) information that will prove your point.

Again, I am not making a point of my own here. I AM NOT SAYING THAT SEATTLE IS NOT A BIOTECH HUB. I am not saying ANYTHING. Therefore, I do not have to provide any supporting evidence and it is not incumbent on me to do anything. I am simply asking you for some information to support YOUR claim. If you cannot provide current and accurate information, then I’ll put your statements where they belong – in the garbage.

You say you already have the facts. Why, that’s excellent news! I look forward to you posting them on this blog. As I said above, I’d be very happy if your statement was correct as this would be great news for Seattle.

It’s pretty obvious you’ve dug yourself into a hole with this whole “biotech hub” thing and are just not able to admit that you:

a) Don’t know anything about biotech (like me!)
b) Know about biotech, just can’t seem to find any evidence that supports your claims that you recently extracted from your ass.

Exactly. I regret getting that annoyed and calling names, but I don’t really regret it that much if I’m honest. :)

All I asked was for some data to back up her statements. I don’t see why I’m supposed to provide that data… I was not the one making the statement or claims in the first place.

Making baseless claims, refusing to supply data (that’s of any use and accuracy) and then accusing others of being too lazy to find the data themselves is a very poor way to debate your point.

I mean she makes statements and then tells other people to prove them ala notabull. No wonder he got pissed and called her a moron.

These blogs strike me as something like a high school boys’ room, or jock room or whatever those are called. Most everyone here speaks with one voice, has the same axe to grind, and when anyone expresses an opposing opinion, out come the axes. It’s a sort of gang mentality. Weird phenomenon–I see it also on rgemonitor and sometimes calculatedrisk. But to a lesser extent.

Might I propose that there be more tolerance for opposing viewpoints and no ad hominem attacks, which are fundamental rules of civil discourse.

Do you actually think before you talk?

300% increase.

Thanks!

Dave

slacker

Yep – 5 jobs in seven years. Proud of the fact, really. You see that time my salary has gone 4X or 400% over what it was starting.

You see, in Biotech for everyone listening, you advance faster by changing companies and promoting yourself, not waiting for others to promote you. 400% in 7 years sounds pretty good to me. Enjoying that 4% COLA increase every year Angie?

Angie, not presenting the facts you have, in a debate, really is…..silly.

So most of the major players from 5 years ago are in trouble. Please list the new major players. Names?

Dave

And you’re right about that turnover. Just like I said up thread, businesses come and go. And there are a bunch of new companies that are up and running now that didn’t exist when the research for that report was being done. What’s your point?

Notabull, your opinion of me is worth the paper it’s printed on, and in an electronic format, that’s saying something.

You’re the one who’s ignorant of the situation (here, biotech in Seattle) and you want to know the facts. It would seem then incumbent on you to, um, do a little investigation. I’ve already got the facts, I don’t need to go find ‘em out again and present them for your entertainment and education. Fortunately for you, I’m both friendly and helpful. ;)

OK, Angie, I’ve remained as nice as I can in this conversation, but that’s over with. YOU ARE A MORON!

Here’s why: I don’t HAVE to do the f**king research. YOU’RE the one making the claim that Seattle is a biotech hub so YOU’RE the one that has to support that claim. NOT ME!

GET IT? (I’ll stay in bold to see if that helps get these concepts into your head)

IF YOU STATE A FACT, YOU ARE THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR SUPPORTING THAT FACT WITH EVIDENCE, STATISTICS AND DATA. YOU DON’T GET TO WHINE AT OTHERS THAT ASK FOR SUPPORTING DATA AND COMPLAIN THAT THEY ARE NOT RESEARCHING THE FACTS THAT *YOU* ARE STATING.

I don’t know why this is so hard for you.

Besides, Dave (the actual knowledgeable person in this area, as far as I can see based on his facts and data he provides) has just taken your old report and slashed it to pieces.

Pathetic. You are truly pathetic.

Oh, and BTW, did I say you’re an idiot? Not sure if I mentioned that.

Touting SLU as a biotech hub is merely just a means to that end, not unlike his sick little affair with King Nickels that gave birth to the S.L.U.T. Seattle politics are really starting to emit a rancid stench.

Dave

They both take a lot of initial investment to come up with viable products, you’d be lucky if one or two go from lab to shelf and give you a decent ROI. That’s why in drug industry there has been consolidation towards larger companies because small companies can go bust in an instant if they bank on one magic product and it falters. The way I see it that’s why Seattle’s smaller biotech companies were bought up. You need to look at where the large cap biotech companies are because that’s where biotech will be viable.

It also explains why drug prices in the US is so much higher because that’s how the pharmas recoup their investments. These companies know they can get away with charging out of whack prices in the US because the gov’t does not negotiate drug prices with them. So until these biotechs have price leverage I’d not bank on them.

The pharmas and biotech are also very dependent on IP protection but that means as a company you’re under constant pressure of litigation while your patent is good but after your patent expires, you’re looking at even more pressure.

I wanted update everyone on the status of the companies int he Brooking report on Seattle that Angie so helpfully provided. Here is a list of the 10 ten employers in Biotech in Seattle in 2002.

Pleasenote – in the industry this info is extremely old. 5 years is an eternity.

Okay lets start:

Immunex – bought by Amgen – layoffs and hiring freeze.
Zymogenetics – still doing well as far as I know.
Corixa – Gone
Icos – Gone
Cell Therapeutics, Inc. – Layoffs of 50% of the company in 2005,
Neutraceutix Inc. – Haven’t heard anything about them.
Rosetta Inpharmatics, Inc. – Layoffs of 10% last year.
Targeted Genetics, Corp. – seems to be doing well.
NeoRx corp. – Gone
Molecumetrics – Gone

Yep – we are dong great – only 3 of the ten as far as I know are still in existence and not laying off.

What I can onyl deduce from this experience is that Angie is abotu a 15 year verteran lab manager at the U Dub or the Hutch. Places liek that breed insularity and unrealistic world views because 1) you literally can do those jobs for 40 years and retire an b) you don’t actaully have to make any money, just keep getting grants.

I figure Angie is a lab manager, been doing it long enough to maybe have broken 50,000.00 a year in her career (possibly) and is feeling confident of future job security. I don’t think she is a Principle Investigator – literally that is a very difficult career path and the time she put into upgradin her house simply not be there early in her career. So she has the nice stable 40-50 hour work week – not the 70-80 hour work week of junior faculty. Little does she know what is coming – there is going to be a huge glut of 25 year lab managers in academics, indeed there already is. As smaller labs close those people are laid off and the fact is there are fewer labs and fewer grants every year. Ask any faculty member if it is easier or mcuh harder getting grants. Those people who never leave the lab manager position end up turned out on the street- competeing with their juniors for jobs.

Angie, when that layoff comes (and they are coming) please remind yourself when you are on your 15th job interview and lookign at a 40% paycut (firends with personal experience) think this “But wait – Seattle is a hub!”

PS – I was laid off in 2003, in Biotech that is pretty normal. It is actaulyl a badge that says – yep, I’ve been around.

Dave

Since I, too, have a job that I need to devote time and energy toward, I did a bit of the research that notabull appears incapable of performing him- or herself. The first decent thing I found on the subject is a Brookings Institute report from 2002 about development of biotech centers in the US. Seattle is one of the nine geographic centers across the country where there is enough knowledge base and “capitalization” to create a local industry.

Here’s the link:
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2002/06labormarkets_joseph-cortright-and-heike-mayer.aspx

Knock yourself our, and please do your own homework from now on. Thanks.

Angie, this sounds exactly like the “professional pissing contest” that you allegedly have little interest in getting involved in. If you’re going to attempt to take the high ground, at least try and maintain that stance for one paragraph.

Angie, continuing to repeat something doesn’t make it true. I think that some dispute this because they either:

a) Think it’s not true
b) Have evidence that it’s not true

Look, I’m not in the biotech industry and really don’t have a clue either way from personal experience. However, I’m decently intelligent and able to absorb facts and information. So, give me some facts about Biotech in Seattle. Stats. Jobs, increases in jobs. BioJobs, per capita. I dunno, *something* to help your case.

I’m open to being convinced in either direction. Honestly, I’d *love* to hear that Seattle is in fact a Biotech hub – that would be great for the future of the town. But don’t just *tell* me it is. Give me information, statistics and knowledge so that I can judge for myself.

Obviously I’m not a financial services professional. ;)

Look, there are other places in the US that are biotech hubs, too. I fully acknowledge that.

Seattle (and its metro area) is one of the cities in the nation where there is a big, dynamic, scientific research community, public and private. It’s one of the aspects of our city that draws people here, for scientific training and for job opportunities. Why this is in dispute is a mystery to me.

How does this relate to the focus of this blog? Well, the other places that incubate new science technologies and the businesses that grow up around them are, generally, *even more expensive* than Seattle. Young people starting out in these fields find housing prices daunting here, but completely and totally impossible in any way in SoCal or the Bay Area. Dave asked why anyone would come here for a science job on the west coast? That’s a "golly" good reason.

It’s way cheaper yet to live in Aberdeen, Twisp, or Moscow, Idaho. Good luck finding a biotech job in those places.

Finally, confidential to Dave: I have little interest in getting into a professional pissing contest with some random guy on a blog who gets awfully bent out of shape over a little ribbing and seems way too interested in finding out who I am. Suffice to say I’ve got rather more experience under my belt than you do. Speculate all you wish.

Finally, I wanted to say that I hope you aren’t so bullish about biotech because you’ve been bitten by the recent layoffs. If so, I hope another position comes along soon. Layoffs are nasty and it sucks to have life shaken up like that.

Preston, also. Don’t forget Preston.

Dave

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/24/news/economy/builders_forecast/index.htm?cnn=yes

Who wants to leave a sterile lab and go home to a sterile hi-rise condo anyways?

“No other city in the state has anything like it, nothing like it anywhere in this quadrant of the country.”

Maybe Angie means that Seattle is the biotech hub of the PNW. Even I’d believe that.

oops.

What point are we discussing? That Seattle is Biotech hub or that it isn’t as expensive as SF?

I totally agree with you on the second point – the Bay area is much more expensive. Our debate though was about Seattle Biotech and its status comparatively to the rest of the country. Do you have a reply to the points I have made? Do you have so little strength and depth to your argument?

Have you got anything to back up your agrument? Experience? Anything?

Dave

But we do have volcanos.

While it may be true that Angie owns several properties (I don’t feel like checking) it’s not always the case that people are deliberately acting to boost their situation.

From a personal perspective, it’s just easier to believe that things are “ok” than to believe things are going to hell. You start to look for the silver lining in every news story, you can fall prey to confirmation bias and other features of our lovely and complex brains.

On the other side of the coin, I find these darn “bubble bloggers” way more likely to take seriously news of impending collapse than to take every article (plus and minus) with equal weight. It’s hard to be completely objective when your personal situation depends on one particular outcome coming true. Tim does a good job at being relatively balanced, but it must be hard. :) He must be a robot or something.

Soooo… what does that mean? You may be a low level speculator (real estate owner) financially invested in keeping those properties as valuable as possible and thus acting as a booster (though a booster on a bubble website would be silly).

Until you show you science experience I am offically signing off on this topic.

Me personally? I have held 5 jobs in the past 7 years in and around the area. Three non-profit two for profit, two small company, one medium, two very large (non-profit and for profit). I am good at what I do and qualified, I got every job I interviewed for, and have managed to move up to low-mid level management without a PhD. In seven years (10 if you include grad school for the MSc).

And you?

Dave

You think Seattle prices are insane, go look at prices within commuting distance of Genentech in South San Francisco. We’re a bargain in comparison, my friend.

Please confirm.

Dave

If you were to move to a city on the West Coast from away and your plan was to find a job – why would you move here?

If you’re looking for a science job? Because the only places on the west coast even more outlandishly expensive than Seattle are the SF Bay area and San Diego. Jesus pete, could it be more obvious?

Also, we are somewhat less likely to end up falling into the sea thanks to an earthquake, and/or burning to a crisp due to wildfires.

Notabull was completely right – I was using job openings as an example of the size of the market here in Seattle. At no time was I sayign that there were only 125 actual jobs. I would have thought the statement was pretty clear on that.

That being said what Angie did was reference a very good website (props to her on finding it on her own) for finsing Biotech jobs in WA. It probabkly is the best site for that – and it lists around 125 for the state. Please note – that is proabably an over estimate – there are several lisitngs from other states.

Taking that into account you can go to http://www.biospace.com – which is a really good website for Bitoech jobs in California. That site lists 300 Biotech jobs in San Francisco alone – and over a thousand in CA in total. Actually you can’t tell the exact amount in CA – the numbers imply don’t go that high on their counter (it says “over 1,000″).

My point – SF is a hub, Seattle is not. San Diego is also a hub.

If you were to move to a city on the West Coast from away and your plan was to find a job – why would you move here?

Hey – a fun little fact that will also drive down the number of emplyment imports in Biotech. Do you know how many positions list “Will not assist with moingg expenses”? Guess what – most of them.

Dave

Most of his ventures aren’t very rewarding…If you owned shares in his Charter Comm. cable company you would have lost money. If you bought into his SpaceShipOne venture you’d be making no money. So I wouldn’t put too much faith in running with Mr. Allen.

The rich are very different from you and me–they have more money to burn and more tax incentives to get even if it means losing money (for them)superficially.

Angie, the poster you are battling was referencing job openings and referenced the website that you originally referenced above. Dave should have said “job openings” and not “jobs”, and I’m sure he’d be willing to correct the relatively minor error in wording. Regardless, it was pretty easy to figure out what this meant from the sidelines, so I think you probably jumped the gun with your “smoking crack” reference.

As an aside, are you in the biotech industry in Seattle? I’m not, and neither are most people I know. But then again, I don’t hang out with people who torture mice. ;) (just kidding – don’t flame me)

If you are in the biotech industry, then it would be nice to know. I personally don’t feel qualified to comment on the local biotech “scene” as I’m not in it. I am, however, in the software scene and can confirm that we’re somewhat of a hub in that area. Microsoft is a big part of that but by no means the bulk. There are a lot of tech s/w tech jobs out there, and for the size of the city it has a pretty good amount of s/w jobs. We’re not alone, however.

I have seen people like Angie before. She is entirely vested in the Seattle Biotech delusion. I am 99% she has never had a job in Biotech, but is emotionally and financially vested in the idea that we are a hub. I figure she is either a recruiter or a real estate agent, or she is massively over leveraged in pricely SLU condos. Either way her posts above show she is uable to relaistically look at the industry in Seattle and as such her comments are entirely suspect and unreliable.

Angie – why don’t you fill us in on your massive amounts of Biotech experience, or are you only able to parrot realty brochure lines back at us. Heck, if you are in the industry we may have already met, Seattle has a very small industry.

Dave

Nice to see that your vapid arguments don’t even address the points I brought up. ShouId I really expect more?

I am going to ask you one question: Do you work the field? Have you ever held a job in the field? Are you employed in any way whatsoever in the Biotech field? I state right here that you are talking out your a$$.

So a few orders of magnitude more jobs than YOU listed are readily available. There are thousands? After the AMGEN hiring freeze and losing two of three biggest private Biotech employers in the city? Please show me where they are – link them here for all too see. I would be mightily impressed if you could. I challenge you to prove me wrong. You know what though you can’t, and you know you can’t.

You want to bet money that every medium to large city isn’t trying to bring in Biotech? I can link to 10 cities trying to sell themselves as Biotech friendly future hubs. Cities alot more business friendly than Seattle. Texas, New England, California, The East Coast in general.

I don’t deny there are people drawn here for the science. You are very well right – in the PNW there is nothing bigger. The problem is that the comparison stops at the PNW.

I am saying Seattle itself n terms of Biotech is VERY SMALL POTATOES. We aren’t a hub.

I’ll make the offer again – please expound on the proliferation of great employment opportunities that your great experience in Biotech can show us. Regale to us at length about your years in laboratory environments and how Seattle really is a player the same size as an actual hub – San Francisco. You may even tell us of all the jobs and positions you have held. Let us know the company names so we see your glory.

Or you can return to reality and realize that you really don’t know what you are talking about.

Dave

Up through 2004 at least, 90% of Harvard graduates graduated with honors.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502775

Every two bit burg with an office park doesn’t have several major research institutions incubating new technologies right and left. You are smoking crack if you think there are only 125 biotech jobs in this city, and I mean private sector research positions. Bumpt that up by a few orders of magnitude for the number of lab jobs in the city, and don’t forget all the business and admin jobs that come along with ‘em.

Sun Tzu, I am not fixated on biotech. I’m pointing out that no small number of people are drawn to Seattle because of the scientific educational and employment opportunities, and many of them like it here and decide to stay.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all those folks landed six figure salaries and a pink pony besides? Sad to say that ain’t the way it goes–but that doesn’t mean that people still won’t be drawn here for the science. No other city in the state has anything like it, nothing like it anywhere in this quadrant of the country.