San Antonio’s bioscience sector has grown dramatically in recent decades. But it hasn’t kept pace with the city’s expansive health care industry, or with other major Texas metros like Dallas and Houston.
Academic and business leaders gathered Wednesday to discuss the opportunities and challenges of turning San Antonio into a life science research and biotechnology hub able to compete on a larger stage.
“We need to get people to know what’s here,” said Heather Hanson, president of BioMedSA, a nonprofit that promotes the city’s bioscience sector. “Once they know what’s here, it’s an obvious choice to come.”
Panelists pointed to several barriers slowing the growth of San Antonio’s bioscience sector, including a lack of capital, limited marketing and visibility outside the region, brain drain among recent graduates, and the absence of a large anchor biotechnology company.
The discussion was organized by local economic development groups City Bloc and CNTR/CTY as part of their “Emerging Industries” series, which highlights sectors expected to drive the city’s future economy.
Uneven growth
Belto Altamirano, CEO of Tech Bloc and a former San Antonio mayoral candidate, said bioscience is one of four industries that stand out as major growth opportunities for the city, alongside advanced manufacturing, aerospace and cybersecurity.
“These are four industries that are not just trending,” Altamirano said. “They’re going to shape the future of our economy, and we should double down in that space.”
Bioscience includes life science research, drug development, biotechnology, medical manufacturing and related industries aimed at bringing discoveries from the lab into health care and pharmaceutical settings.
San Antonio is already home to major players, including Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Southwest Research Institute and UT Health San Antonio, along with a large military medicine ecosystem anchored by Brooke Army Medical Center.
According to a 2022 San Antonio Chamber of Commerce report, the area’s combined health care and bioscience industries have grown into a $44 billion economic engine for Bexar County, up from just under $30 billion in 2011.
But that growth has been uneven. Health care expanded by 63% over that period, while bioscience grew by 35%, from $12 billion in 2011 to $17 billion in 2021.
Statewide, Texas’ bioscience industry is “large and rapidly growing,” with employment up 21% since 2019, according to the Texas Healthcare & Bioscience Institute. The state also ranks ninth nationally in bioscience-related patents.
Much of the national visibility, however, comes from Houston — long considered a major U.S. bioscience hub — as well as Dallas, which has quickly expanded its life science ecosystem.
Science city
San Antonio’s biggest gap, Hanson said, is the lack of large private biotech companies and a deeper startup ecosystem.
San Antonio has more than 1,800 active clinical trials underway at any given time and a strong foundation of nonprofit research institutions and military medical infrastructure, but it still needs a major private sector anchor — the Toyota version of a biotech company, as one audience member put it — to build momentum, Hanson said.
“We are very rich in the research side,” she said. “But we don’t have as much of the companies. Our biggest challenge right now is to get a big win of a large company.”
A major factor, she said, is the lack of marketing around San Antonio’s health care and bioscience assets. San Antonio is often known for tourism and culture rather than as a center of research and biotech innovation.
“People in San Antonio need to think of our city as a city of science,” Hanson said.
Capital, talent and brain drain
Panelists also repeatedly pointed to capital as one of the biggest obstacles to building a larger bioscience economy. Life science companies often require specialized labs, equipment, manufacturing facilities and years of research before reaching the market.
“It takes a lot of time and a lot of money,” said Paulomi Modi, a pediatric cancer researcher at UT Health San Antonio and regional director at Nucleate Texas, a nonprofit that supports bioscience leaders.
Modi, who herself is moving to Houston soon, said startups in other Texas metros or larger hubs like in Boston or San Diego often have more access to lab space, grant-writing support and funding opportunities that help them survive the early years.
San Antonio has the “ingredients,” she said, but needs to better connect them into a coherent ecosystem.
A major consequence of the capital gap is brain drain, she said. Young scientists and entrepreneurs frequently leave for larger hubs where more jobs and funding exist.
Jeremy Nelson, chief innovation officer at VelocityTX, said San Antonio has strengths that could be leveraged into a unique niche. Picking a lane and going all-in on it could help make up for the other areas where San Antonio’s bioscience space falls short, he said.
“I think we have a lot going for us,” Nelson said. “And any time I see we’re not as high on a [list], I think ‘that’s just an opportunity for us.’”
Building the workforce
Panelists also emphasized that bioscience is not limited to PhDs and lab researchers. Hanson said many jobs in the sector can be accessed directly out of high school, including in manufacturing and lab operations.
Amanda Ramirez, director of student success at UT Health San Antonio’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, said the university and other organizations are working to strengthen training pipelines through partnerships with Alamo Colleges, school districts and universities.
The goal, she said, is to introduce bioscience manufacturing education earlier to students, while improving social and economic mobility for residents.
Still, San Antonio’s biggest challenge may be convincing the rest of the country, and even its own residents, that it’s already a bioscience city.
“We have a lot to be proud of here,” Hanson said. “We should not just talk about the Spurs, as awesome as they are. We have a lot more than that.”