BIOCOM Launches 2012 Southern California Life Sciences Economic Impact Report SAN DIEGO, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- BIOCOM, the trade organization representing Southern California's life sciences industry, has released its first regional economic impact report showing conclusively that Southern California's life sciences cluster is one of the most vibrant, multi-faceted and innovative in the world. The report, done by Hendershot Economics, breaks the life sciences industry into five sectors and analyzes each sector on a county-by-county basis. The report shows through transparent data how robust, vibrant and multi-faceted the life sciences are in Southern California. In Southern California - Orange, San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties - 97,000 people are employed at 3,500 life science companies. Those workers support an additional 151,000 jobs in the region. About 31,000 of those jobs are in key support industries, such as real estate and financial services, which are essential for the life sciences to do business. The total impact of the life sciences is 248,000 jobs, which pay a total of $17 billion in wages. In the region, the industry generates a total of $57 billion in economic activity. One of the region's unique characteristics is its high concentration of research institutes, giving it strong roots in innovation and fostering an especially collaborative environment. All of these factors contribute to the region's nimbleness to quickly adjust to the needs of the market as the industry continues to evolve and new sectors emerge, such as industrial biotechnology, wireless health and genetic sequencing. The flexibility has allowed the cluster to create 7,500 jobs during an economic downturn when much of the country's workforce was contracting - the economies of three of the region's four counties grew faster than the national economy in the life sciences. In the next two years, the cluster is expected to create another 6,000 new jobs. "Our analysis shows that the job creation in Southern California can be attributed to the region's unique characteristics, including its research base, its business climate, strong support services and the strength of the existing cluster," said Joe Panetta, BIOCOM President and CEO. BIOCOM decided to undertake this project because no report has ever looked at the region as a whole. This report does that and more. It analyzes the collaboration and linkages that exist between the counties, the businesses, the workforce and the service providers throughout the region. It shows the sheer density of research in the region makes it unique, and creates an atmosphere that makes it seem as though innovation is in the air. It shows the industry in the region was creating jobs throughout the economic downturn and it illustrates the many reasons why this industry is a key economic driver in the region. Copies of the economic report are available on BIOCOM's website, http://biocom.org/home/econreport/ or by contacting Communication's Director Terri Somers, tsomers@biocom.org.