Source of Strength
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Source of strength

Area's medical device manufacturers are growing good-wage jobs

By FRED O. WILLIAMS
News Business Reporter
10/12/2002

The steady decline of manufacturing jobs is Buffalo's recurring economic nightmare.

But a cluster of medical device manufacturers is fighting the trend by growing jobs, providing a source of economic strength in an otherwise grim industry, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

"There's more going on (in medical manufacturing) than people often realize," said Richard Deitz, economist at the Fed's Buffalo Branch and co-author of the report.

In upstate New York, the sector grew employment 4 percent between 1988 and 1997, to 12,483. Overall manufacturing jobs slumped 15 percent during the same period.

However, job growth upstate lagged behind other centers of medical manufacturing. The 4 percent increase here compares with 18 percent in California and 74 percent in Florida, the study said.
Among upstate cities, Buffalo is an anchor of medical manufacturing with 4,732 jobs, second to Rochester with 6,164, the report said.
In Buffalo, about 50 companies occupy the sector, according to the biotechnology business group Bufflink. A few - like pacemaker pioneer Wilson Greatbatch - have name recognition outside industry circles.

Among recent examples of growth is Invitrogen, a maker of cell growth media. It is expanding its Grand Island plant to accommodate an extra 108 jobs over two years.

The strength of medical manufacturers could help spur growth in drug development, Bufflink project manager Dave Tyler said.

"We think (medical manufacturing) is an important part of the life sciences cluster," Tyler said. He cited Appro Healthcare, a Buffalo supplier of intravenous drug-delivery products, as an example of the technological proximity between medical manufacturers and drug developers.

Appro Healthcare is headquartered on Main Street in Buffalo, in the city's medical corridor. The firm has contracted with Polymer Conversions, an Orchard Park manufacturer with about 75 employees, to make its intravenous flow controller.

"Medical devices and pharmaceuticals have a great deal in common," the Fed study said. The industries serve similar markets, study the same industry trends and are both affected by Food and Drug Administration regulation.

If it were a state by itself, upstate New York would be No. 8 in the country for medical manufacturing jobs, the Fed study said. Its 12,483 jobs represented the nation's highest concentration of employment, relative to the size of its economy. That indicates an environment and knowledge base and environment that supports medical manufacturing. The region's hospitals and medical schools, and its proximity to pharmaceutical centers in New York City and Philadelphia, contribute to medical manufacturers' success, the study said.

"The downside is, it's just very small," Deitz said. Medical manufacturing jobs in Buffalo amount to 6 percent of manufacturing's 79,300 total. However, the sector's economic weight is increased by its higher-than-average wages, which were $34,461 in 1997.