N.J.'s big-bucks experiment
By North Jersey Media Group,
North Jersey Media Group
| 06. 19. 2005
With little fanfare and no direct approval of the electorate, the state of New Jersey has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting the biotech industry.
Powerful forces are hard at work in Trenton, selling biotechnology as a way to simultaneously bolster the state economy and improve the health of citizens. Acting Governor Codey has been front and center, promoting a plan to spend $380 million more on research into embryonic stem cells.
Much is at stake in a state where 200,000 jobs depend on the pharmaceutical industry and its ability to develop the next generation of miracle medicines.
But New Jersey's partnership with biotech is already running into problems. It is cloaked in secrecy and riddled with the potential for conflicts. Its goals are at times nebulous.
A thorough review of the effort by The Record found:
Millions of your tax dollars have gone to companies that take valuable research, profits and jobs from New Jersey and strengthen the biotech industry elsewhere.
Millions are being spent on tax breaks and other public subsidies for small biotechs and big pharmaceutical...
Related Articles
By Neel Shah, The Preprint | 04.11.2024
Years ago, I interviewed for a residency position at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Standing before the domed Victorian building at the campus entrance, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the history of the place, the great...
By Sabrina Souza and Zoe Sottile, CNN | 04.01.2024
Michigan has become the last state to decriminalize paid surrogacy on Monday, after Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a package of bills intended to protect families using surrogacy and in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Whitmer signed the Michigan Family Protection Act...
By Emily Cochrane, The New York Times | 04.03.2024
A Mobile, Ala., hospital at the center of a State Supreme Court ruling that found that frozen embryos could be considered children said on Wednesday that it would no longer provide in vitro fertilization lab services after this year.
In...
By Todd Feathers, The Guardian | 03.25.2024
For the last several months, a city at the heart of Silicon Valley has been training artificial intelligence to recognize tents and cars with people living inside in what experts believe is the first experiment of its kind in the...