BIO-TECH LOBBY BEATING THE DRUM FOR HANDOUT

A couple of weeks ago MichBio, a lobby of businesses, schools, and other organizations involved in biotechnology, held its annual conference in Detroit to drum up support for “stable funding” of bio-tech research and commercialization.  Next year the lobby will bring its show to the Van Andel Institute right here in River City.  Meanwhile it is opening up offices across the state.  No mystery as to all the fuss.  The Michigan House of Representatives just approved a $1 billion bond to fund bio-tech businesses in the state.  Once the state senate and governor sign off on it, the bond will be a done deal and the bucks will flow.

Of course, the whole thing is being pitched as a jobs creator because of all the new bio-tech businesses that this billion-dollar fund will supposedly build.  Why then are MichBio members like Pfizer Inc., a profitable publicly-traded pharmaceutical company, the University of Michigan, the most well-endowed school in the state, and the Van Andel Institute, allegedly backed by the late Jay Van Andel $2.6 billion fortune, holding their hands out?

If Pfizer has great ideas for bio-tech products it already has well-established access to the capital markets.  Why do the taxpayers need to help fund its research and development?  If it’s taking to long to bring a new drug to market, maybe it’s time to reform the notorious bureaucracy of the Food & Drug Administration instead of subsidizing the profitable pharmaceutical industry.

As for the University of Michigan, students with taxpayer grants and subsidized loans already pay through the nose for tuitions that climb at rates that wildly outpace inflation, only to be taught by wage-slave teaching assistants so that professors can spend their time doing research.  U-M’s research is already subsidized.  The taxpayers don’t need to shovel any more money its way.

Then there’s the Van Andel Institute.  Once again I must emphasize the one salient fact about its funding.  Van Andel pledged his Amway fortune to the support of the VAI.  Immediately after his death, his heirs who control the VAI disbanded the private foundation that Van Andel had supporting the institute to the tune of $30 million a year.  Since then the Van Andel children have refused to make any specific commitment to funding the VAI from their inheritance, while they have rattled the tin cup to collect contributions from the public.  So either the VAI needs the handout because the Van Andel heirs have reneged on their father’s pledge to support the institute with his fortune or there is no fortune in the first place.  The latter strikes me as most likely in light of the way both of the Amway clans continue to go to the public well for all of their projects.

The bottom line, folks, is don’t buy into the hype about this billion-dollar bio-tech boondoggle.  It will not be funding businesses that will create great jobs for you or your children.  It’s corporate welfare through and through.