Updated March 07, 2014.
The Salt Lake City Life Sciences cluster made its first foray as a life sciences cluster because it was a popular place for pharmaceutical warehousing in the early days of the industry. Since then it has attracted more companies to locate their headquarters in the area. Small and medium-sized bio med companies that are establishing their own name in innovative science, and collaborating with the University of Utah's research scientists, are changing the look and feel of this cluster.
That said, Salt Lake City does not enjoy as much NIH or Venture Capital investment as most other clusters in the U.S. Local private and public groups have been emerging to change that however.
"Bio Med", short for "biological and medical", is an industry devoted to the life sciences. For our purposes, we capture medical supplies, medical devices, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical companies, along with research organizations like hospitals and universities, into the "life sciences" umbrella.
These companies, hospitals, and universities have laboratories where research teams work on new ideas that will either cure a disease or else make diseases and conditions easier for people to manage. Medical supplies, medical devices, medical instruments, and pharmaceutical medicines are dreamed up, tested, and manufactured in this industry.
Life Sciences Jobs in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City typically "ranks" as the 15th largest bio med cluster out of the 21 recognized clusters in the United States.
The comparative rankings come from various data collected by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rankings are based on criteria that include the percentage of the area's citizenry that work in the life sciences industry, the percentage of the organizations (establishments, or building/campuses) that are in the area and in the life sciences industry), NIH funding dollars and venture capital funding dollars.
You'll notice that usually only the "percentage" of the workforce and a "percentage" of the establishments are measured. The rationale behind this is to measure the "clustering" or "concentration" of life sciences employment and establishments that give a particular region its local identity as a "cluster".
Salt Lake City:
- has the 12th highest percentage of its citizenry employed in the life sciences industry, which adds up to around 17,000 people. By comparison, the San Diego Cluster and the Greater Boston Cluster have the highest percentages;
- ranks 20th in attracting venture capital funding, at around $25 million each year;
- ranks 20th in funding from the National Institutes of Health, at around $162 million;
- ranks around 4th in the percentage of building and campuses that are in the life sciences industry, and numerically adds up to over 500 organizations that may need to hire you. By comparison, the Raleigh-Durham Cluster has the highest percentage of established buildings and organizations in the life sciences field.
- Major employers include Axial Biotech, ARUP Laboratories, Myrexis, Amedica, Myriad Genetics, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon, Bard Access Systems, Q Therapeutics, Varian Medical Systems, the University of Utah
You can do a bit more research on your Salt Lake City life sciences job search by going to Silicon Slopes. Silicon Slopes has a directory that includes a company list where you can research technology and life science companies. They also have a job search directory on the site. And if you are considering re-locating to Utah and want to learn more interesting facts about the state and its culture, you can get a bit of insight from their "Utah At A Glance" section. Here you'll learn things like:
- A 2009 Gallup poll stated Utah was the happiest state in the United States.
- According to Forbes, in 2009, Utah was America's Best Place To Live.
- Utah has the youngest average population in the nation, at 28.5 years old.
- The 200,000 acre Dinosaur National Monument is home to over 2,000 dinosaur fossils from the Jurassic Period and visitors can see them embedded in the sandstone walls.
You can also find broader job-search help in the following resources provided by About.com's Job Search Expert, Alison Doyle: