How Indiana stacks up against other states in life sciences

Indiana wants to be a big player in the life sciences and according to a recent report from an independent Washington think tank that compares it with four other states, it is succeeding in some respects.

But in other areas, Indiana, with its $63 billion life-sciences industry, does not do as well as North Carolina, Washington, New Jersey, and Colorado, the four other states in the report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation finds.

In each of the five states included in the report, life-sciences industries account for at least a quarter of all high-tech start-ups, the report says.

Here are five Indiana-specific takeaways from the report:

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•From 2001 to 2016, Indiana performed second to worst of the five states when it came to pharmaceutical employment growth, increasing by less than 1 percent. Only New Jersey, which saw a decline of 25 percent did worse. North Carolina led the five states in pharmaceutical employment growth, with an increase of more than 12,900 jobs over 15 years, or 46 percent.

•North Carolina was also the leader in medical device employment growth, gaining 81 percent of 3,700 jobs. Here, Indiana came in second with a growth of 5,300 jobs, representing a 45 percent increase.

•If you work in the life sciences, you’re likely to be doing better than your state’s average, no matter where you live. On average, those in the medical device industry in Indiana made $67,903 in 2016, compared with the state’s average wage of $44,564, the report found. The average pharmaceutical wage in Indian was $128,995, second only to New Jersey’s average wage of $177,595.

•Indiana led the states when it came to increase in medical device patents in recent years. The state saw a 292 percent increase in recent years, more than any of the other, though Colorado came in a close second with a 285 percent increase.

 •Therapeutic substances, also known as medicaments, accounted for $3.7 billion in exports from Indiana to other countries in 2016, the report found. While this was 10.5 percent of the state’s international exports, such exports fell by almost 26 percent in three years.

Call IndyStar staff reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter and on Facebook.