Ranica Arrowsmith, Associate Editor08.04.15
Founded in 2006, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) was established by the Massachusetts legislature to fund and sponsor biotech research, with an initial appropriation of $10 million. In 2008, the center became steward to the $1 billion Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative, which has in the years since helped to make the commonwealth one of the most medtech-rich areas in the United States.
The center is the hub of a thriving life-sciences community—after six years of strategic investment by the MLSC, Massachusetts now serves as a magnet for growing companies from every part of the world. One of the companies featured in MPO’s annual Top Companies report, Boston Scientific Inc., is headquartered just outside its namesake city in Marlborough, Mass. The company was founded in 1979, and founders John Abele and Pete Nicholas had “a clear purpose—to benefit public health by bringing more accessible, lower-cost and lower-trauma medical options to patients, and to become a leader in all aspects of the industry.” With the help of their home state, they’ve succeeded.
Pamela Norton is one of the people at MLSC whose purpose is to nurture not just giants such as Boston Scientific, but companies of all sizes that are bringing life-saving technologies into the medtech space.
As vice president for industry relations and programs, her role is to lead the activities focused on helping life-sciences companies thrive in Massachusetts, including the Accelerator, Small Business Matching Grant and International Collaboration programs. Through her 30-year medical industry career, Norton’s insight around the future of medical advances and her ability to bring together critical stakeholders has been well-known. Initially, a biomedical engineer at Johnson & Johnson (incidentally, no. 1 on MPO’s Top Companies list this year), she then spent 20 years as a leading management consultant at Arthur D. Little and IMS Consulting. Norton earned a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University.
Norton discussed her role at MLSC with MPO, as well as insight into the medtech industry both in Massachusetts and beyond.
MPO: What skills have you gained during your career that make you uniquely qualified to serve in the role of vice president of industry relations and programs at MLSC?
Norton: Having been in the life-sciences industry my whole career, I bring a breadth and depth of industry knowledge and exposure to the role. Working in management consulting for the bulk of my career brought me in touch with industry leaders from across all life-sciences sectors, helping them shape their strategic direction and encouraging them to consider opportunities that extend beyond their current market sector participation.
In my current role, I have the opportunity to work with many market leaders as they expand their presence in Massachusetts. By working with these large life-sciences companies, the MLSC hopes to have them connect with emerging companies of interest to accelerate the path to new treatments, therapies and cures.
Likewise, in my role as the VP of industry programs, I have the privilege of meeting many young companies. Leveraging my technical background and early years as a biomedical engineer enables me to speak the language of these innovative new companies and appreciate the amazing capabilities they are fostering. My enormous respect for small companies—especially for their bravery and perseverance—has helped me provide support throughout their development trajectory and guide them to some of the competitive funding programs, which Massachusetts has offered to accelerate their growth.
MPO: How would you characterize the current state of the life sciences, particularly devices, market in Massachusetts and how have you and your organization responded?
Norton: Massachusetts is in the fortunate position to be amazingly vital in development, manufacture and export of medical devices as well as a leader in biotechnology. The MLSC is engaged in activities with both of these sectors as well as the diagnostics sector, pharmaceuticals and bioinformatics. Our range of programs and initiatives fit the needs of the medical market sectors in Massachusetts.
With many of the top 20 medical device companies headquartered in Massachusetts, our agency has had the opportunity to meet with and explore the needs of these critical stakeholders. Beyond issues related to streamlining regulation, we understand how important it is for emerging medical device companies to find the funding they need to get through the development and clinical evaluation phase. Many of the MLSC programs have been designed with consideration of these funding needs in mind. In late 2014, at the MassMEDIC (the trade association for the medical device industry in Massachusetts, one of the country’s strongest medical device advocacy groups) medtech showcase meeting, the MLSC announced the launch of a new grant program called the “Milestone Achievement Program” or MAP, which provides promising early-stage companies a grant of up to $200,000 to achieve a milestone that will position the company well for securing further funding. With our first group of 12 awardees, including numerous medical device companies, we hope we are fueling some of the future Massachusetts medical industry success stories.
MPO: What are some of your expectations about how the medical device industry will evolve in the next five to 10 years?
Norton: The next decade will be an amazing one for the medical device industry as the line between medical devices and pharmaceuticals/biotechnology continues to blur. The combination of unique delivery devices and technologies generated by medical device innovators will enable site specific exposure for new cancer therapies, new pain medications, bone growth stimulators, treatments for diseases like macular degeneration, and so much more. The medical device players will have a stronger seat at the table as these new innovations merge with the development of new therapeutic targets. Massachusetts will lead the way in these innovations as we already have a plethora of emerging companies pushing the envelope for new delivery materials and techniques, new injection technologies and other platforms. Beyond this, we expect to see the evolution of medical imaging take into account not just the visualization of anatomical structures but also uncover a greater understanding of the physiological processes happening within the pathology being visualized. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg for the medical device sector of 2025.
MPO: What do you see as the greatest challenges for your organization?
Norton: The MLSC is a quasi-public agency charged with implementing the 10-year $1 billion life-science initiative enacted by our state legislature and signed into law in 2008. To date the MLSC has invested or committed more than $590 million in public funding, leveraging over $1.7 billion in third-party investment and creating thousands of jobs. Thanks in large part to these investments, Massachusetts now has more people working in the life sciences per-capita than any other U.S. state, and over the past seven years Massachusetts has emerged as the world’s leading ecosystem for life sciences innovation and growth. In 2015, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News ranked Massachusetts’ biopharma cluster no. 1 in the United States.
One important challenge for the MLSC is to sustain the momentum that we have created, while defining new and innovative strategies that will help our companies move the ball forward on the development of treatments, therapies and cures in areas, such as neuroscience and tissue engineering, where the need is great but progress has been elusive.
MPO: What do you see as the greatest opportunities for your organization?
Norton: Over the past seven years, through a true public-private partnership, Massachusetts has built the world’s leading ecosystem for life-sciences innovation and growth. Companies from all over the world are choosing to locate their U.S. operations in Massachusetts because they want to be a part of it., As the global leader in life sciences, Massachusetts now has a unique capacity to dramatically impact human health throughout the world, and I believe that is our greatest and most important opportunity.
MPO: What's the best professional advice you've ever received?
Norton: It is extremely difficult to pinpoint “the best” professional advice, as there have been many good pieces of guidance as my career has evolved. However, one piece of guidance that is useful across all parts of a career trajectory relates to investing in the world outside of what you are focused on every day. Some would call this “networking” but in addition to meeting people, this effort should include focused learning about exciting ideas being developed beyond your own four walls. This includes hearing or reading about innovations in your industry or in other industries. To do this well, one must spend time at trade association meetings, lectures by thought leaders, conferences and panels.
The center is the hub of a thriving life-sciences community—after six years of strategic investment by the MLSC, Massachusetts now serves as a magnet for growing companies from every part of the world. One of the companies featured in MPO’s annual Top Companies report, Boston Scientific Inc., is headquartered just outside its namesake city in Marlborough, Mass. The company was founded in 1979, and founders John Abele and Pete Nicholas had “a clear purpose—to benefit public health by bringing more accessible, lower-cost and lower-trauma medical options to patients, and to become a leader in all aspects of the industry.” With the help of their home state, they’ve succeeded.
Pamela Norton is one of the people at MLSC whose purpose is to nurture not just giants such as Boston Scientific, but companies of all sizes that are bringing life-saving technologies into the medtech space.
As vice president for industry relations and programs, her role is to lead the activities focused on helping life-sciences companies thrive in Massachusetts, including the Accelerator, Small Business Matching Grant and International Collaboration programs. Through her 30-year medical industry career, Norton’s insight around the future of medical advances and her ability to bring together critical stakeholders has been well-known. Initially, a biomedical engineer at Johnson & Johnson (incidentally, no. 1 on MPO’s Top Companies list this year), she then spent 20 years as a leading management consultant at Arthur D. Little and IMS Consulting. Norton earned a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University.
Norton discussed her role at MLSC with MPO, as well as insight into the medtech industry both in Massachusetts and beyond.
MPO: What skills have you gained during your career that make you uniquely qualified to serve in the role of vice president of industry relations and programs at MLSC?
Norton: Having been in the life-sciences industry my whole career, I bring a breadth and depth of industry knowledge and exposure to the role. Working in management consulting for the bulk of my career brought me in touch with industry leaders from across all life-sciences sectors, helping them shape their strategic direction and encouraging them to consider opportunities that extend beyond their current market sector participation.
In my current role, I have the opportunity to work with many market leaders as they expand their presence in Massachusetts. By working with these large life-sciences companies, the MLSC hopes to have them connect with emerging companies of interest to accelerate the path to new treatments, therapies and cures.
Likewise, in my role as the VP of industry programs, I have the privilege of meeting many young companies. Leveraging my technical background and early years as a biomedical engineer enables me to speak the language of these innovative new companies and appreciate the amazing capabilities they are fostering. My enormous respect for small companies—especially for their bravery and perseverance—has helped me provide support throughout their development trajectory and guide them to some of the competitive funding programs, which Massachusetts has offered to accelerate their growth.
MPO: How would you characterize the current state of the life sciences, particularly devices, market in Massachusetts and how have you and your organization responded?
Norton: Massachusetts is in the fortunate position to be amazingly vital in development, manufacture and export of medical devices as well as a leader in biotechnology. The MLSC is engaged in activities with both of these sectors as well as the diagnostics sector, pharmaceuticals and bioinformatics. Our range of programs and initiatives fit the needs of the medical market sectors in Massachusetts.
With many of the top 20 medical device companies headquartered in Massachusetts, our agency has had the opportunity to meet with and explore the needs of these critical stakeholders. Beyond issues related to streamlining regulation, we understand how important it is for emerging medical device companies to find the funding they need to get through the development and clinical evaluation phase. Many of the MLSC programs have been designed with consideration of these funding needs in mind. In late 2014, at the MassMEDIC (the trade association for the medical device industry in Massachusetts, one of the country’s strongest medical device advocacy groups) medtech showcase meeting, the MLSC announced the launch of a new grant program called the “Milestone Achievement Program” or MAP, which provides promising early-stage companies a grant of up to $200,000 to achieve a milestone that will position the company well for securing further funding. With our first group of 12 awardees, including numerous medical device companies, we hope we are fueling some of the future Massachusetts medical industry success stories.
MPO: What are some of your expectations about how the medical device industry will evolve in the next five to 10 years?
Norton: The next decade will be an amazing one for the medical device industry as the line between medical devices and pharmaceuticals/biotechnology continues to blur. The combination of unique delivery devices and technologies generated by medical device innovators will enable site specific exposure for new cancer therapies, new pain medications, bone growth stimulators, treatments for diseases like macular degeneration, and so much more. The medical device players will have a stronger seat at the table as these new innovations merge with the development of new therapeutic targets. Massachusetts will lead the way in these innovations as we already have a plethora of emerging companies pushing the envelope for new delivery materials and techniques, new injection technologies and other platforms. Beyond this, we expect to see the evolution of medical imaging take into account not just the visualization of anatomical structures but also uncover a greater understanding of the physiological processes happening within the pathology being visualized. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg for the medical device sector of 2025.
MPO: What do you see as the greatest challenges for your organization?
Norton: The MLSC is a quasi-public agency charged with implementing the 10-year $1 billion life-science initiative enacted by our state legislature and signed into law in 2008. To date the MLSC has invested or committed more than $590 million in public funding, leveraging over $1.7 billion in third-party investment and creating thousands of jobs. Thanks in large part to these investments, Massachusetts now has more people working in the life sciences per-capita than any other U.S. state, and over the past seven years Massachusetts has emerged as the world’s leading ecosystem for life sciences innovation and growth. In 2015, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News ranked Massachusetts’ biopharma cluster no. 1 in the United States.
One important challenge for the MLSC is to sustain the momentum that we have created, while defining new and innovative strategies that will help our companies move the ball forward on the development of treatments, therapies and cures in areas, such as neuroscience and tissue engineering, where the need is great but progress has been elusive.
MPO: What do you see as the greatest opportunities for your organization?
Norton: Over the past seven years, through a true public-private partnership, Massachusetts has built the world’s leading ecosystem for life-sciences innovation and growth. Companies from all over the world are choosing to locate their U.S. operations in Massachusetts because they want to be a part of it., As the global leader in life sciences, Massachusetts now has a unique capacity to dramatically impact human health throughout the world, and I believe that is our greatest and most important opportunity.
MPO: What's the best professional advice you've ever received?
Norton: It is extremely difficult to pinpoint “the best” professional advice, as there have been many good pieces of guidance as my career has evolved. However, one piece of guidance that is useful across all parts of a career trajectory relates to investing in the world outside of what you are focused on every day. Some would call this “networking” but in addition to meeting people, this effort should include focused learning about exciting ideas being developed beyond your own four walls. This includes hearing or reading about innovations in your industry or in other industries. To do this well, one must spend time at trade association meetings, lectures by thought leaders, conferences and panels.