By: Alexander Margulis PhD, Chief Operating Officer, Mansfield Bio-incubator
We are living during the unprecedented times. An invisible yet deadly COVID-19 pathogen has shut down wide swaths of the society worldwide pushing people into Zoom conference calls and virtual meetups instead of what used to be in-person interaction at the labs, offices, cafes, and conference rooms. Furthermore, the epidemic laid bare the vulnerabilities in the supply chains for wide varieties of industries, including biotech, pharmaceutical and medical devices, as companies scramble to find alternative sources of raw materials, components, and pharmaceutical ingredients, or start manufacturing them onsite, as the shipments from world manufacturing hubs overseas have become unpredictable. Despite these challenges, it is astonishing to see the speed with which the innovation was unleashed here in the United States to come up with new approaches to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to combat this scourge.
As crippling as the disruption appears at this moment, this pandemic is temporary and eventually the world will recover. Nevertheless, COVID-19 is giving us a unique opportunity to re-think how we work and come up with better ways to achieve maximum productivity.
Specifically, proximity to the major academic institutions has been a prerequisite to develop a robust innovation ecosystem. The premise was that the breakthrough ideas would be created by the in-person serendipitous interactions between the academic researchers, industry partners, and investors. For the last 30 years, this model has led to the creation of a dozen major life science hubs around the world. For example, Boston/Cambridge, and especially the 1.5 square mile area around Kendall Square, has become the number one hotspot in the world for the biomedical innovation. As I wrote previously, the area has increasingly become the victim of its own success through high real estate prices and the congestion exacerbated by the antiquated roadway network and the decrepit public transportation system. Before COVID-19, commuters had to brave the crowded buses or trains, or sit in the worst traffic in the nation, to make it to work. Consequently, an increasing number of life science companies have moved their operations throughout the state. More life science mini-clusters formed throughout the state including Watertown, Waltham, Natick, Woburn, Beverly, Worcester, and now Mansfield, or are pushing the non-laboratory personnel to work remotely. As the economy starts to open up, many will be reluctant to use the public transportation, thus making the traffic and parking woes around Kendall Square even worse. Observing the required social distancing would be hard within the overcrowded laboratories and next to impossible everywhere else. Therefore, a good portion of employers who otherwise would have considered Boston/Cambridge are already looking into moving their operation in the suburbs both for quality of life considerations and to save money on the office/lab space while a large swath of the white-collar jobs will become remote.
Because the innovation workforce will become more dispersed over time, does it mean that the life science innovation in our region and other major hubs will suffer? On the contrary, thanks to the burgeoning virtual conferencing tools unleashed by the internet, there has been an unprecedented collaboration between different research entities all over the world to tackle COVID-19, such as a series of virtual hackathons at MIT. Furthermore, many networking events that were previously done face-to-face, such as those organized by Venture Café, have successfully moved online. In fact, the attendance to the virtual sessions has increased and the audience has become more international, logging in from all over the world. The mix of audience has also changed. Specifically, me and others have noticed a much higher percentage of the attendees being more introverted scientists/inventors themselves as compared to the in-person events that were increasingly attended by more extroverted Business Development professionals. While over time, with the social distancing rules gradually relaxed, the face-to-face networking will come back, the pandemic will inevitably give rise to hybrid events which can be attended either in-person or virtually.
With many meetings going online following the COVID-19, key stakeholders within the innovation ecosystem, including the VC investors, will have easy access to the inventors not only within the Greater Boston region but all over the world. As such, the barriers to conduct groundbreaking research outside the immediate innovation hubs will have been reduced even further. In practical terms, a team working in an emerging life science cluster, such as the one at Mansfield Bio-Incubator, can now be a part of the Kendall Square, or other major life science hub ecosystem, without having to physically be there. In this way, a good chunk of money currently spent to cover the lease expenses can be redeployed elsewhere while giving the researchers more productive time during the day and therefore more time spent with family, friends and other activities crucial for their well-being. This will go a long way in reducing time for life- and planet-saving inventions to get on the market faster while stimulating the regional economies and providing more job and internship opportunities for the local talent coming out of colleges, high school and more mature professionals.