Money for N.C. Biotechnology Center could be cut

A line item in Gov. Pat McCrory’s recent budget proposal would reduce state money for the N.C. Biotechnology Center — an organization researchers say is vital to the state’s leadership in the industry.

McCrory’s budget, released March 20, would cut $10 million from the center’s funding each year for the next two years. In a press conference, McCrory said state money is still tight, and decisions had to be made.

“It’s a very tough budget, but it’s a budget concentrating on our priorities,” he said.

The N.C. Biotechnology Center opened in 1984 to expand the state’s life science infrastructure and support research and job growth.

According to the center, the state’s bioscience sector employs 58,000 people who earn an average of $78,000 a year.

Norris Tolson, president and CEO of the center, said in a statement that the cuts might result in the center defaulting on prior commitments across the state.

“These endeavors are designed to develop new medicines, grow safer foods, add jobs and improve the environment,” he said.

Tolson said in the statement that funding for the center is important during a time when other states continue to invest in biosciences.

“We hope that the members of the General Assembly will continue to work with us, as they have for the past 29 years, and support the center’s efforts to grow and expand the high-paying jobs in the biotechnology and life sciences sector all across North Carolina,” he said.

Jim Shamp, spokesman for the center, said in an e-mail that bioscience jobs pay about twice as much as others in the private sector.

“The governor’s proposal to cut $10 million from our budget each of the next two years represents a huge change in the way the biotech center would be able to support companies and their job-creation efforts,” he said.

Shamp said the center manages a program that recruits scholars for university research in the state.

Oliver Smithies, a professor of pathology and lab medicine at UNC-CH, was one of these scholars appointed through funding from the center.

Smithies won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 2007.

“The importance of having the biotech center and its ability to help recruit new investigators and scientists to this state is absolutely critical for our future,” he said.

The center also gives grants to research companies, such as AlphaVax, which was started by UNC-CH faculty and develops new vaccine technology.

“We’re just one of the many companies in the state that have benefitted over the years from these types of loans,” said Robert Olmsted, the company’s vice president of research.

Shamp said bioscience companies that have spun off from UNC-system schools currently employ about 3,200 people in the state.

“This kind of step backward threatens to stall North Carolina’s leadership in this highly competitive sector, and we will lose job-growth opportunities,” he said.

Contact the desk editor at state@dailytarheel.com.