Many on mission to lure biotech business away

Fifty stories above Boston, over a glass of 10-year-old single-malt Glenkinchie scotch, Jack Perry tried to lure business from Massachusetts.

Scottish Development International, which just disclosed details of a 100-acre bioresearch complex near Edinburgh, last night hosted 200 life-science executives in the Prudential Tower to tout the benefits of investing money in the northern regions of Britain.

"We're telling them that Scotland, as a place to do business, has some unique advantages," Perry said.

Across town, the nation of Canada rented the Wang Center to do much the same thing, and Australia threw a party in the State House. All of them -- along with Singapore, Kansas, and 70 other countries and states -- are angling to snag a piece of a growing industry nurtured in New England. They hope to do it by touting a lower cost of living, medical research expertise, and, in some cases, cash handouts to companies that set up shop.

This week's annual Biotechnology Industry Organization conference has become the premier international gathering not of doctors or biologists, but of economic development forces looking for a cut of the high-tech, high-salary life-sciences business that is crucial to Massachusetts' economic engine.

"Are we poaching your territory? Absolutely, unequivocally," said Somer Hollingsworth , the president of the Nevada Development Authority .

Hollingsworth's group, which recruits companies to Las Vegas, is firing a shot across Boston's bow. It is not throwing a party, but did buy four billboards around the city, including one in Kendall Square, the local biotech industry's core. They depict a DNA strand and say: "Ask your accountant why Las Vegas is right for you: 1-800-NO-TAXES."

Though biotech is known as a cash-intensive business in which most companies lose money overall, it is also an increasingly important part of the global healthcare economy, which means it brings investment and research dollars, and jobs.

Biotech is also an attractive employer, offering high-paying jobs in a relatively clean industry. A recent study showed that Massachusetts biopharmaceutical companies averaged salaries of about $100,000 per worker.

But a host of states, regions, and other countries also see opportunity in biotech. The exhibit floor of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center has been transformed into a virtual United Nations of economic salesmanship. National and state booths -- some two stories high -- trumpet places like Manitoba, Germany, and Malaysia with elaborate backlit awnings, video screens, and live presentations. In the South Korean pavilion, dozens of officials wait at small conference tables to talk about potential deals. Meanwhile, Nebraskans grill steaks.

Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, is building an urban biotech complex where bioresearch companies can do business tax-free. Singapore is sending out daily bulletins to convention attendees. At parties this week, Florida's trade representatives have been wooing local executives by talking up the $1 billion the state has put on the table to lure the Scripps Research Institute and other major biomedical facilities, with the aim of generating its own cluster of biotechnology companies.

Joshua Boger , the chief executive of Cambridge biotech firm Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. , said he is approached "every week," not just at BIO, by trade representatives attempting to sell him on the merits of their regions.

Boger said he has no plans to move Vertex to a lower-rent state with a better tax deal, but as companies expand, Massachusetts will face challenges from areas with lower costs of living and attractive development deals, he said.

Though Massachusetts officials say the state's reputation as a high-tax state is outdated, they remain frustrated by the lack of affordable housing, and the slow pace of the local permitting process for new construction.

And despite the outside trade groups' optimism, not every recruitment deal ends happily. Biotech is a risky industry in which a few failed experiments can send a firm's fortunes plunging. A few years ago, North Carolina and South Carolina went to battle over a small drug firm searching for a new home. The company has since gone out of business.

The Cambridge firm ViaCell Inc. recently disclosed that it is locked in a dispute with Singapore, which offers cash paybacks to biotech companies that set up research labs. It says ViaCell didn't employ enough people to meet the terms of the deal, and wants $1 million of its money back.

With Singapore, Scotland and others hunting aggressively for the same business expansion deals, like the $660 million biomanufacturing plant that Bristol-Myers Squibb broke ground on in Devens last week, Massachusetts has been putting more boots on the ground to meet the challenge head-on.

"We're competing with all of them," said Bob Coughlin , the state's undersecretary for business development.

Coughlin estimates the state will have as many as 60 people working the convention floor this week, from tourism officials to Governor Deval Patrick. The governor also spoke at the opening reception on Sunday night, and is co-hosting an exclusive reception at the Institute of Contemporary Art tonight.

Tomorrow at the convention, Patrick is expected to disclose a policy proposal to help boost the state's biotech economy, although state officials declined to offer specifics yesterday.

State officials don't want a repeat of Massachusetts' lackluster showing at last year's BIO convention in Chicago. At that conference, state companies set up kiosks and dispensed bottles of Sam Adams beer and tortilla chips.

For this year's effort, headed by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, the state's contingent spent a collective $1.2 million to assemble the largest pavilion on the trade-show floor. It features a cluster of booths and translucent yellow pillars set up around a small theater, where local politicians and industry executives talk up the state's ambitions and its pioneering role in biotech.

The battle for the industry's attention even has a cloak and dagger element, with representatives from one state sneaking into other pavilions to figure out exactly what is being offered as enticements -- grants, loans, or just some snazzy T-shirts.

Sometimes out-of-staters even stage a Massachusetts invasion. A biotech group from North Carolina recently flew to Boston to pitch several companies on their state's lower cost of living and burgeoning life-science industry. "Had I known where they were going to be," Coughlin joked, "we would have tried to get their car towed."

Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser@globe.com.