Utah’s life science and healthcare sectors are significant contributors to the Beehive State’s economy. These industries comprise more than 1,600 companies, provide 180,000 jobs, and contribute $21 billion to Utah’s GDP.
Andy Robertson is the director of the nonprofit BioHive, which plays an important role in the growing sector.
“At BioHive, we're building communities of like-minded individuals. We're branding Utah so that we can ensure that we have a place on the national or global stage, and we bring together our amazing ecosystem,” Robertson said.
The third week of April was BioHive Week, which culminated in its annual BioHive Live conference at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium.
“BioHive Week was fantastic. Fifteen separate events by industry partners, by universities, by the state of Utah, and Salt Lake City collaborators and partners," Robertson said. "BioHive Live is an inspirational, motivational, patient impact focused event, and it is so great to share that with our ecosystem. This was our second sellout in a row."
The conference offered talks from industry leaders in the state, such as Kurt Workman, co-founder of Owlet, a smart baby monitor company that began as a student-led project at BYU and is now a multimillion-dollar company in the state.
Connecting Utah’s life science students with jobs opportunities in the industry, and helping Utah companies find local talent, is another important function of BioHive.
“We have a number of ways to connect the students to our ecosystem; one of the ways that we do that is with a Hive Tour with hundreds of students that we take to Utah businesses with active internship programs and new grad FTE opportunities," Robertson said. "What we also like to do with our university chapters is engage ecosystem members or graduates of a school to bring them back on the campus and to share with the students what they do, what their roles and responsibilities are, if they're a founder, what the underlying science is, what they're trying to do to make the world a healthier place."