16 Aug Partnership between UW-Madison and GE paved way for promising new Wisconsin tech hub

By Jay Hill and Anjon Audhya, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

For too long, the economic opportunity and growth of biotech has been clustered in a few cities on the coasts. That may be about to change. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration Tech Hub program recently announced that Wisconsin will receive a game-changing $49 million in federal funding to advance personalized medicine, enhance health care outcomes and drive economic development. The news validates the crucial groundwork laid by the medical technology and life sciences ecosystem in Wisconsin, and points to the potential impact that could follow for patients and health systems worldwide.

Since 2015, Wisconsin has added over 15,000 new biohealth jobs, helping the industry workforce grow to more than 129,000 here with an average per capita annual wage of nearly $100,000. As a result, Wisconsin has become a hotbed for innovators who want to improve the human condition by creating new ways to diagnose and treat disease, resulting in $1 billion in R&D spending in 2020 alone. The state has emerged at the forefront of innovation and growth in personalized medicine and health technology. It’s a successful template that could bring economic growth to regions beyond the elite handful of biotech hot spots currently dominating the market. Read more…