This homegrown business sector might be Utah’s best-kept secret

The rise of Silicon Slopes and the success of Utah’s software development industry has garnered plenty of attention in the last decade or so and the proceeds of those successes have fundamentally reshaped the state’s fiscal landscape.

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One need look no further than Ryan Smith’s acquisition of the Utah Jazz just 17 months after he sold Qualtrics, the customer experience company he co-founded in 2002, to European software giant SAP for a then-record $8 billion. And now Smith Entertainment Group has brought an NHL franchise to the state and is on the cusp of breaking ground on a taxpayer-assisted, multi-billion dollar reshaping of downtown Salt Lake City.

But we haven’t heard much about the state’s burgeoning life sciences industry. Utah is the place, after all, that gave the world the first artificial heart.

Turns out that, even amid a broad-based economic portfolio that has fired on all cylinders for years, Utah’s biotech/life sciences sector is a juggernaut, outpacing all other industries for consistent job growth, high wages and driving an ever-larger slice of the state’s GDP. It has broadened into areas beyond a legacy that was once largely driven by medical device development.

Utah-based scientists played historic roles in innovating or advancing a slew of life-changing medical implements like the artificial heart, as well as artificial kidneys, prosthetic limbs and hearing aids. Now, the state’s life science and health innovation industry has evolved into a multifaceted ecosystem that’s among the most vibrant in the country.

Andy Robertson, executive director of biotech/life sciences advocacy group BioHive Utah, will tell you that the sector has matured to the point where it no longer needs to make the case that it is emerging. The challenge now, according to Robertson, is ensuring that people inside the state, across the country and around the world recognize what is already happening.

“Utah isn’t arriving,” he said in a Deseret News interview. “It’s arrived.”

That was the message behind last week’s BioHive Premieres conference, touting a Utah business sector whose roots in medical devices have expanded into therapeutics, diagnostics, digital health and other specialties. Robertson said the gathering in Salt Lake City was an opportunity to showcase that diversity and introduce companies to potential partners and collaborators while helping Utah’s workforce see the possibilities in the state.

“We want participants to leave with the feeling that now I know who I am calling tomorrow,” Robertson said ahead of the event.

A powerful economic engine

A 2023 from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute identified over 1,600 life sciences companies accounting directly and indirectly for more than 180,000 jobs across the state. Average earnings in the sector were outpacing all other industries by about 48%, $96,000 per year versus $65,000. The sector generated $21.6 billion of the state’s gross domestic product in 2022.

The report found job growth in the sector has been a particular bright spot for Utah’s economy, averaging 5.1% annual job growth, well ahead of the the collective average for other industries in the state at 3.4% from 2012 to 2022.

At the time the report was released, Gardner researchers discovered Utah was No. 3 in the nation when it comes to life sciences’ share of states’ overall workforces, trailing only Massachusetts and New Jersey.

The emerging realm of brain-computer interfacing

Blackrock Neurotech participated in the recent BioHive conference and has been a stalwart among Utah’s vibrant health innovation industry since its founding in 2008, advancing possibilities for a device called the Utah Array. Unveiled in 1998, it’s the product of research by University of Utah biomedical engineering professor Richard Norman.

The tiny 4-millimeter-by-4-millimeter electronic device is covered in silicon needles that record or stimulate electrical activity in the brain. It is the primary component that allows for brain-computer interface applications. The implantable technology connects the human brain directly to external digital devices, computers and prosthetics through thought.

BCI applications are showing positive results in the effort to restore function for patients suffering from neurological diseases like ALS or Alzheimer’s; dysfunction caused by epilepsy or brain trauma; as well as limitations resulting from paralysis disorders, according to the company.

Blackrock has been referred to as the “silent backbone” of the brain-computer interface field. The Utah Array electrodes are the hardware in many of the most important BCI studies over the past decade. Blackrock’s vice president of people, Janelle Gordon, notes that while the work is highly technical, the real satisfaction is seeing the impacts on people’s lives.

“You see someone use what we built to control a computer on their own, talk to their family, or do something they never thought they would be able to do again, and all of it becomes very human,” Gordon told the Deseret News via email.

“Those moments are grounding. The achievement belongs first to our pioneers using the technology and the research teams working alongside them. Study participants and their families give an extraordinary amount of time and trust to this research. We’re fortunate to play a part in making those moments possible.”

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Gordon notes Blackrock technology has been implanted in dozens of users and described how it changed the life of one of those patients, Casey Harrel.

“He was diagnosed with ALS and quickly lost the ability to speak,” Gordon said. “Using a system built with Blackrock Neurotech’s technology, researchers at UC Davis translate his attempted speech into language, spoken in his own voice. He has now used that system at home almost every day for nearly two years, more than 3,800 hours in total, to communicate with the people in his life. That’s what this work is for.”

Standing guard on biothreats and syndromic disease

Like Blackrock, BioFire Defense, a subsidiary of French diagnostics giant bioMérieux, can trace its roots to innovations born in the laboratories of the University of Utah.

BioFire Defense CEO John Harris said he sees his company’s work in biothreat detection and pandemic preparedness as a Utah innovation story with global implications. And that’s thanks to technology licensed from the university that grew into tools for identifying dangerous pathogens and helping clinicians act quickly.

Harris tracked BioFire Defense’s family tree back to Idaho Technology, a company that leveraged PCR testing techniques first invented by Nobel prize winner Kary Mullis but were notably advanced by University of Utah professor Carl Wittmer. Idaho Technology, founded in Idaho but relocated to Salt Lake City shortly after its launch, would evolve into BioFire Diagnostics which was acquired by bioMérieux in 2014.

Today, BioFire Defense works closely with federal agencies, including the U.S. military and the National Institutes of Health, to develop tests for infectious diseases and emerging threats. Its relationship with bioMérieux gives that specialized mission access to broader manufacturing capabilities, Harris said, and a global network of installed instruments — advantages he says proved important during the COVID-19 response. BioFire had one of the fastest responses in the world in developing a PCR test procedure to detect the presence of the virus.

At the center of the technology is the ability to test a single sample for multiple pathogens, helping clinicians distinguish among diseases that can produce similar symptoms. Rather than waiting days for some laboratory results, Harris said, the company’s systems can provide actionable information within an hour.

“We don’t diagnose, we provide the tools and actionable intelligence,” Harris said.

Harris said that distinction reflects the company’s role, one that aims to equip medical professionals with information to guide treatment while maintaining the capacity to respond to outbreaks.

While bioMérieux, a company founded in 1963 and headquartered in Marcy-l’Étoile, France, just west of Lyon, could have swallowed up BioFire and moved it anywhere in the world, Harris notes the company recognized the value of keeping the expertise behind the technology in its home location of Utah. It has since made Salt Lake City its North American headquarters.

“They valued so much the technology and brainpower that existed here in Utah that they invested in Utah,” Harris said.

Growing the talent pipeline

BioHive’s Robertson said that Utah-centric investments like bioMérieux’s continue to fuel the state’s biotech and life sciences growth but also underscored the importance of ongoing workforce development efforts.

Gardner’s report found STEM programs at Utah institutions of higher learning have also grown in terms of their share of graduates. In 2000, 13.1% of degree completions in the Utah System of Higher Education were in STEM programs. That share jumped to 15.3% in 2004 before declining gradually for eight years. Since 2012, the STEM share of degrees awarded by Utah colleges and universities has consistently risen, again surpassing 15% and reaching a high of 18.9% in 2021.

Robertson said BioHive is engaged in efforts to bolster this growth in STEM studies through its own student chapters, university connections and work with K–12 STEM partners, pathways he said are designed to introduce young Utahns to life sciences careers before they enter the job market.

His message is that those careers can grow alongside the state’s companies, with opportunities spanning startups, midsize businesses and major employers.

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“You can have an entire life sciences career here in Utah,” Robertson said.