It's no secret that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the global life sciences industry shined. It ramped up development of everything from diagnostic tests to new vaccines — including two based on previously unproven messenger RNA technology —all within months instead of years.
At the Bio International Convention this week at the San Diego Convention Center, the industry took stock of those accomplishments, as well as asked what's next now that the pandemic has entered an endemic phase.
Can messenger RNA — the technology underpinning vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech — be made durable and effective enough to treat other diseases beyond COVID?
"What we now have is data on billions of people" who have received mRNA vaccines, said Kathy Fernando, head of mRNA strategy at Pfizer. "I think that is going to open the floodgates for mRNA."
Can government agencies help improve private supply chains so shortages of respirators, personal protective gear and other health care equipment that plagued the early days of the pandemic are avoided during the next health crisis?
"We're trying to find those risks and vulnerabilities, focusing on public health and medical supply chains, and building maybe a little more domestically-based manufacturing," said Kristin DeBord, acting deputy director of the Office of Strategy, Policy, Planning and Requirements in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "But we do recognize that is not a solution to all of the problems."
The Bio convention features more than 3,000 companies exhibiting and 100-plus panel sessions over four days. Topics include therapy targets, business development, digital health, patient advocacy, public policy, and next-generation biotherapeutics.
On Monday, a panel on the next breakthrough in mRNA technology attracted an overflow crowd. Roughly 12 billion doses of COVID vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer have been administered globally, according to the panel.
"The last two years will historically be one of the greatest events in the history of medicine," said Randall Moreadith, chief executive of mRNA biotech Serina Therapeutics.
It is a remarkable turnaround for a technology that many had given up on, said Nathaniel Wang, chief executive of Replicate Bioscience. No treatment based on mRNA had been approved by regulators prior to Moderna's and Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccines.
Skeptics of the mRNA continue to criticize its durability, saying it requires frequent boosters and expensive refrigeration. Some questioned the panel on whether it could be effective method for treating cancers or other diseases beyond viruses.
But supporters think mRNA has momentum, and with additional research it could be an effective technique for triggering immune response against other diseases beyond COVID.
Much of this research is being done in San Diego. That trend is reflected in the labor force here.
In a nationwide life sciences labor market study released Monday by commercial real estate broker CBRE, San Diego ranked as a top-five biotech cluster in the country.
Though valuations for many life science firms have dropped over the past year, "the long-term and the medium-term prospects are still very strong," said Ian Anderson, head of life sciences and healthcare research at CBRE.
"The fundamentals are still there. The innovation that is occurring continues to be remarkable," he said. "There has been a pull-back in equity markets and venture capital funding, However, the amount of funding from investors is still nearly at a record high."
Nationally, job growth in life sciences professions—from bioengineers to microbiologists — grew 79 percent since 2001 to roughly 500,000, according to the study. That compares with an overall U.S. job growth rate in that span of 8 percent.
In San Diego, the number of life sciences research jobs rose from 12,555 to 14,077 from 2016 and 2021 – a 12.1 percent gain.
The report found that the percentage of San Diego's labor force employed in life sciences ranked third in the country; and it had the highest density of biochemists, biophysicists and other biological scientists than any other metro area relative to the overall local job market.
"Because of the demand you have seen over the past couple of years, you have a downtown where there is a lot of development and soon to be some transactions signed," said Ted Jacobs, who heads the life sciences practice for CBRE in San Diego. "And you are seeing a further push up north into Carlsbad and the opening up of new submarkets that used to be class A office but are now seeing office-to-lab conversions happening."
