Nearly 20 years ago, Massachusetts made a 10-year, $1 billion bet that life sciences could power its economy. Today it is home to the biggest life-science cluster in the world.
Rhode Island started in 2023, with $45 million invested in the R.I. Life Science Hub over three years. With the November election coming up, the real question is whether voters and elected officials will continue the investment and give it the runway it needs.
When I talk about life sciences, I mean it in the broadest sense. It’s not just labs and scientists. It’s the medicines, medical devices and tests that keep people healthy, and all the work it takes to design, make and deliver them. A lot of that work is manufacturing. And making things precisely is a proud part of Rhode Island’s history.
Rhode Island is starting from a strong position. We already have more than 100 life science companies and over 6,000 people working in the industry. And we have the ingredients for innovation and growth, including researchers at Brown University and the University of Rhode Island who have brought in nearly $3 billion in federal funding over the last decade.
The Rhode Island Life Science Hub was created to support and build out the ecosystem. We’ve opened our first shared lab space for new companies in Providence. Since then, companies from Massachusetts (Organogenesis), Connecticut (Mantis Health), and even Ireland (Symphysis) and Australia (Veintech), have moved here or started up here.
Rhode Island has something bigger states can’t easily match: We’re small, meaning we can move fast. Our researchers, hospitals and manufacturers are a short drive apart, and usually know each other by name. That lets us move faster on what matters most: getting proven treatments and devices to doctors, nurses and patients. In life sciences, speed is essential to get the idea to the patient. And I am proud Rhode Island is working to become the place where it happens fastest.
This isn’t about competing with our neighbors. Rhode Island offers room to grow, a skilled workforce, and lower costs as a way to further support life science growth in the region.
What we don’t have yet is the long-term commitment Massachusetts made. Rhode Island Life Science Hub wasn’t in the state budget as its own line item this year. As a result, its future will be decided by voters through Question 3 on the November ballot, a $100 million economic development bond that aims to fund investment for growth industries such as life sciences, developing both the needed business-ready locations and the ecosystem to support growth and jobs.
Massachusetts has shown what a long-term bet on life sciences can do. Rhode Island has reinvented itself before. With the same patience and commitment, we can do it again.
Bob Cormier is the president and chief executive officer of the Rhode Island Life Science Hub in Providence.