我们所熟知的肯德尔广场时代就此终结。如果生物科技永远无法复苏，该怎么办？

【中美创新时报2025 年 4 月 14 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）在马萨诸塞州，生物技术几十年来一直是就业和财富的重要驱动力，而肯德尔广场正是这一增长的中心。根据MassBioEd的数据，到2024年，该州生命科学领域的就业岗位将超过14万个，平均年薪接近20万美元。但如果这些工作岗位面临危机，该怎么办？《波士顿环球报》记者卡拉·米勒对此作了下述报道。

随着求职的时间一天天过去，艾伯特开始怀疑自己是不是出了什么问题。

他得到了一些关于如何调节情绪、如何增强自信的建议。但在参加了七家公司的现场面试，却一无所获之后，他开始怀疑自己。

艾伯特不愿透露自己的真实姓名，部分原因是他已经找到了一份新工作，他拥有一份令人羡慕的履历：癌症免疫学博士学位、两项著名的博士后职位、在剑桥一家跨国生物技术公司多年的工作经验，以及在波士顿郊区一家生物技术初创公司的工作经历。

但当他在2024年夏天被解雇时，感觉这还不够。他感到经济压力很大。他听说招聘经理每个职位都会收到数百份申请。“就业市场，”他说，“糟透了。”

我们正在见证的或许是生物科技的重塑——甚至连业内人士都感到意外。经过五个月的寻找，Albert 最终在波士顿一家小型生物科技公司找到了一份工作，专注于癌症研究。但一些业内人士担心，肯德尔广场的运营人员规模可能将远不及现在，这将对餐饮、零售和房地产市场产生连锁反应。

在马萨诸塞州，生物技术几十年来一直是就业和财富的重要驱动力，而肯德尔广场正是这一增长的中心。根据MassBioEd的数据，到2024年，该州生命科学领域的就业岗位将超过14万个，平均年薪接近20万美元。但如果这些工作岗位面临危机，该怎么办？

华盛顿无党派智库信息技术与创新基金会副主任桑德拉·巴博苏指出，美国以前也曾经历过整个行业衰落的情形。她最近的报告《不会重蹈覆辙：为什么美国不能失去生物制药行业》指出，“电信设备、半导体、电视、太阳能电池板和化学品”都曾出现过类似的情况。她认为，生物技术领域也可能出现类似的情况。

“我认为这种情况正在发生，”总部位于波士顿的 Octagon Therapeutics 公司的首席执行官艾萨克·斯托纳 (Isaac Stoner) 说道。“当一个行业走向消亡或面临这种生死攸关的时刻时，它会在一段时间内给该地区带来广泛的经济冲击。这种情况发生在我们在 80 年代末 90 年代初失去计算机领域领导地位的时候。大概有 15 年的时间，没有一个行业能够介入并填补这个空白。”

诚然，过去几年里，我们见证了生命科学领域的裁员潮。自2021年秋季以来，纳斯达克生物科技指数已缩水约四分之一。许多大型投资者对投资生物科技公司持谨慎态度。据行业刊物《Fierce》报道，过去三年，大大小小的生物制药公司共裁员近500人，涉及数万人。一份2024年的报告发现，2022年至2023年间，马萨诸塞州生命科学领域的职位空缺数量下降了30%以上。

例如，总部位于剑桥的 Biogen 公司自 2022 年以来已进行了多轮裁员。该公司表示，最近一轮裁员发生在今年早些时候，标志着“资源转向外部机会”。

那么，工作岗位都去哪儿了？一言以蔽之，中国。（尽管也有一些工作岗位流向了其他国家，包括印度。）而且，每年都有公司将越来越多的实验室工作外包给成本更低的国家。这意味着实验室里的许多传统岗位——从研究化学家到工艺技术员，从质量控制专家到助理科学家——正在消失。其中一些岗位需要专门的本科培训；另一些则需要硕士或博士学位。

不出所料，中国在研药物数量激增。据行业刊物《终点》（Endpoints）报道， 2014年，中国公司在研药物数量不足500种，与美国公司当年在研药物数量近6000种相差甚远。

十年过去了。到2024年，中国经历了巨大的增长，拥有超过6000种正在研发的药物。与此同时，美国在2022年达到顶峰，拥有超过9000种正在研发的药物，此后略有下降。

今年3月，制药巨头阿斯利康宣布将斥资25亿美元在北京建设全球研发中心。阿斯利康正计划于2026年在剑桥开设一家研发中心。该公司首席执行官帕斯卡尔·索里奥特指出，该中心体现了“广泛的合作和人才获取机会，以及我们对中国的持续承诺”。

风险投资公司Curie.Bio创始人战略与运营副总裁乔治·沃伦(George Voren)表示：“我们认为未来五到十年内获批的药物，很大一部分将来自中国。这意味着这些药物的发现来自中国，而不一定来自剑桥的生物技术实验室。”

美国公司与中国实验室合作的一个关键原因是，中国拥有随时待命的科学家团队。沃伦表示，这意味着公司“可以立即开展工作并取得进展”，而不是“自己搭建实验室，再花六个月时间招聘员工”。（不过，正如我们在其他行业看到的那样，知识产权安全问题可能存在隐患。）

我采访的多位人士表示，特朗普政府削减美国国立卫生研究院和其他联邦机构的研究经费，将加剧这些趋势。纽约投资银行Stifel的董事总经理蒂姆·奥普勒（Tim Opler）惊叹道，就在我们政府大幅削减对科学家的支持之际，中国生物技术领域却蓬勃发展。

奥普勒表示，一些生物科技投资者历来认为波士顿是创新的中心，而中国只是抄袭我们的突破。他表示，这种想法是这样的：“在波士顿，我们毗邻布罗德研究所，毗邻麻省理工学院，甚至还有哈佛大学。” 但在今年3月访问中国后，奥普勒总结道：“这种观点已不再准确。在很短的时间内，你会看到中国公司以闪电般的速度进军生物制药行业的高创新领域。”

奥普勒认为，生物技术仍然是一个全球增长型行业——尽管获得工作所需的技能可能会发生变化，但他对整体就业情况的担忧程度较低。不过，他表示，如果企业不提高效率，它们将面临“生存威胁”，这意味着它们可能不得不将某些工作外包才能生存。

失业并不意味着风险投资家或高管一定会离开马萨诸塞州。但是，虽然我们或许能留住那些年薪数百万美元的人，但我们却有可能永远失去大量年薪10万、20万或30万美元的工作岗位。

那么，如果生物技术岗位大量流失，波士顿地区会发生什么？斯托纳说，他看到了“白领衰退”的迹象，那些拥有高学历、接受过专业培训的人很难找到下一份工作。我管理着一个大型社交团体，我看到那里找工作的人数越来越多。这让我感到不安。

除了失业之外，剑桥、萨默维尔和其他生物科技热点地区的特征也可能发生变化。商业地产公司Hughes Marino的董事总经理尼克·阿马兰特（Nick Amarante）表示，过去十年来，大量实验室空间被建造，而入住率的下降令人不安。“坦率地说，这是历史上对房东来说最糟糕的市场，”他说。

阿马兰特指出，许多房东无法将价格降到足以与潜在租户达成协议的程度——这样做会违反他们自身的财务义务条款。他认为，这将迫使越来越多的建筑丧失抵押品赎回权。阿马兰特说，房东面临的一个问题是，当潜在租户参观空置或几乎空置的大型实验室大楼时，他们会意识到“这可能会给他们的团队带来一种世界末日般的体验，而没有人希望出现这种情况。”

如果大片实验室空间空置，斯托纳担心“各种社区都会衰败。这会导致房地产价格下跌。这会产生一种缓慢的滚动效应。”

我问斯托纳，有什么办法可以扭转生物科技的颓势。他说，美国必须采取“残酷的保护主义措施”。总统在4月8日承诺的药品关税是不够的。还必须采取“类似FDA这样的说法：‘如果数据是在中国生成的，我们就不会审查你的药品。’”

奥普勒表示，在中国生产药品可以带来极高的成本效益。在与一位生产阿司匹林原料的首席执行官交谈时，奥普勒问他是否担心关税。这位首席执行官笑着告诉奥普勒：“如果关税是100%，那就没关系了。在美国生产（一种原料）效率太低了，关税可能高达200%，而在中国生产效率更高。”

对很多公司来说，这就是底线。“如果我是一家全球排名前十或前二十的制药公司，”斯托纳说，“我根本不在乎最终创新来自哪里。我没有动力去确保肯德尔广场的这个集群继续成为生物界羡慕的对象。”

题图：商业地产公司休斯·马里诺（Hughes Marino）的董事总经理尼克·阿马兰特（Nick Amarante）站在肯德尔广场附近一处新建的实验室外。过去十年，大量生物科技空间被建造，而入住率的下降令人担忧。布雷特·菲尔普斯为《波士顿环球报》拍摄

附原英文报道：

It’s the end of Kendall Square as we know it. What if biotech never bounces back?

By Kara Miller Globe Correspondent,Updated April 14, 2025, 5:00 a.m.

Nick Amarante, managing director of commercial real estate firm Hughes Marino, outside a recently constructed lab space near Kendall Square. Huge amounts of biotech space have been built over the past decade, and the slowdown in occupancy has been jarring.Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe

As the months ticked by in his job search, Albert started to wonder if there was something wrong with him.

He got advice on how to regulate his emotions, and how to be more self-confident. But after on-site interviews with seven companies — and no offers — he started to doubt himself.

Albert — who didn’t want his real name used, in part because he’s at a new job — had an enviable resume: a PhD in cancer immunology, two prestigious postdoctoral appointments, years of experience at a multinational biotech in Cambridge, and a stint at a biotech startup in the Boston suburbs.

But when he was laid off in the summer of 2024, it didn’t feel like it was enough. He felt financially stressed. He heard that hiring managers received hundreds of applications for each job posting. “The job market,” he said, “was terrible.”

What we’re witnessing may be a remaking of biotech — surprising even to those in the industry. After five months of searching, Albert ultimately found a job at a small Boston-based biotech, where he focuses on cancer research. But some in the industry worry that we face the prospect of Kendall Square operating with a fraction of the folks who work there now, leading to knock-on effects on restaurants, retail, and housing.

In Massachusetts, biotech has been an important driver of jobs and wealth for decades, with Kendall Square at the epicenter of that growth. In 2024, the state had more than 140,000 jobs in the life sciences, according to MassBioEd. And the average salary was nearly $200,000. But what if those jobs are in jeopardy?

America has seen entire industries slip away before, notes Sandra Barbosu, associate director of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. Her recent report, “Not Again: Why the United States can’t afford to lose its biopharma industry,” points out that it happened with “telecommunications equipment, semiconductors, television, solar panels, and chemicals.” And, she believes, it could happen with biotech.

“I think it is actively happening,” said Isaac Stoner, chief executive of Boston-based Octagon Therapeutics. “When an industry goes extinct or faces this existential moment, it causes broad economic pain for the region for a while. This happened when we lost our leadership position in computing in the late eighties and early nineties. It was maybe a 15-year period where there wasn’t an industry to step in there and fill the void.”

Certainly, over the last few years, we’ve seen a retrenchment in life sciences. Since the fall of 2021, the NASDAQ biotech index has lost about a quarter of its value. Many large investors have been cautious about funding companies. And over the last three years, there have been nearly 500 rounds of layoffs in both small and large biopharma firms, representing tens of thousands of people, according to the industry publication Fierce. A 2024 report found that the number of life science job postings in Massachusetts fell more than 30 percent between 2022 and 2023.

Cambridge-based Biogen, for example, has had multiple rounds of layoffs since 2022. The most recent round — done earlier this year — marked “a shift of resources to external opportunities,” according to the company.

So where are the jobs going? In a word, China. (Though there are also jobs heading to other countries, including India.) And with every passing year, companies outsource more of their lab work to lower-cost countries. That means that many traditional jobs in labs — from research chemists to process technicians, quality control specialists to associate scientists — are evaporating. Some of these jobs require specialized undergraduate training; others require master’s or doctoral degrees.

Predictably, the number of drugs in development in China has surged. In 2014, Chinese companies had fewer than 500 drugs in development, a far cry from the nearly 6,000 drugs that US companies had in development that year, according to the industry publication Endpoints.

Fast forward a decade. By 2024, China had experienced massive growth, boasting more than 6,000 drugs in development. Meanwhile, the United States peaked at more than 9,000 drugs in development in 2022 and has dipped slightly since then.

In March, the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca — which is working on opening a research and development center in Cambridge in 2026 — announced it would spend $2.5 billion to build a global R&D center in Beijing. The company’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, noted the center reflects “the extensive opportunities that exist for collaboration and access to talent, and our continued commitment to China.”

“The drugs that we believe will be approved in the next five to 10 years, a larger proportion of them are going to be coming from China,” said George Voren, vice president of founder strategy and operations at venture firm Curie.Bio. “Meaning the discovery of them is coming from China. And not necessarily the biotech labs in Cambridge.”

A key reason that American companies work with Chinese labs is that they have scientists who are on staff and ready to go. That means, Voren said, a company “can immediately get work started and make progress,” rather than “building your own lab and spending six months to hire people.” (Though, as we’ve seen with other industries, there may be concerns about the safety of intellectual property.)

Multiple people I spoke with said these trends will be exacerbated by the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce research grants from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. Tim Opler, a managing director at Stifel, a New York-based investment bank, marveled that China’s biotech ramp-up is happening at the very moment that our government is slashing support for scientists.

Opler said some biotech investors have historically believed that Boston sits at the epicenter of innovation, and China just copies our breakthroughs. The thinking goes like this, he said: “Here in Boston, we’re next to The Broad, we’re next to MIT, we’ve got Harvard.” But after traveling to China in March, Opler concluded: “That view is no longer accurate. In a very short period of time, you’re seeing Chinese companies move at lightning speed into areas of high innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry.”

Opler argues that biotech remains a global growth industry — making him less concerned about overall employment, though the skills needed to secure a job may shift. Still, he said, companies face “an existential threat” if they don’t become more efficient, meaning they may have to outsource certain jobs simply to survive.

Losing jobs does not mean that venture capitalists or executives will necessarily leave Massachusetts. But while we might retain those who make millions of dollars a year, we risk permanently losing the legions of jobs that pay $100,000, $200,000, or $300,000 a year.

So what happens to the Boston area if biotech jobs largely slip away? Stoner said he’s seeing signs of “a white-collar recession, where these people with very specialized degrees and very specialized training are having a hard time finding their next position. I run a big networking group, and I’m just seeing the number of folks there job-hunting going up and up and up. It makes me uncomfortable.”

Apart from job losses, the character of Cambridge, Somerville, and other biotech hotspots may shift. Huge amounts of lab space have been built over the past decade, said Nick Amarante, managing director at commercial real estate firm Hughes Marino, and the slowdown in occupancy has been jarring. “Candidly, it’s the worst [market] in history for landlords to operate in,” he said.

Amarante points out that many landlords can’t reduce prices enough to make a deal with prospective tenants — doing so would violate the terms of their own financial obligations. And he believes that will force more and more buildings into foreclosure. One problem for landlords, Amarante said, is that when potential renters tour large lab buildings that are empty or nearly empty, they realize “it can create a post-apocalyptic experience for their team, and no one wants that.”

If large swaths of lab space remain empty, Stoner worries about “decay of various neighborhoods. And that drives down real estate prices. And it just kind of has this slow rolling effect.”

I asked Stoner if anything could be done to turn the tide in biotech. He said the United States would have to turn to “brutal protectionist measures.” Pharmaceutical tariffs — which the president promised on April 8 — wouldn’t be enough. It would have to be “things like the FDA saying: ‘We are not going to review your drug if the data was generated in China.‘”

Opler said making pharmaceuticals in China can prove tremendously cost-effective. In a conversation with a CEO who makes an ingredient for aspirin, Opler asked if he was worried about tariffs. The CEO laughed and told Opler: “If it was a 100 percent tariff, it wouldn’t matter. It is so inefficient to make [an ingredient] in the United States, the tariff could be 200 percent, and it would be more efficient for me to make it in China.”

And for lots of companies, that’s the bottom line. “If I’m a top 10 or top 20 global pharma company,” Stoner said, “I don’t care where the innovation comes from at the end of the day. I have no incentive to make sure this cluster in Kendall Square remains the envy of the bio world.”