A recent third-party report [PDF] released by the BioForward Wisconsin advocacy group illustrates how and why Wisconsin’s biohealth industry has become a leading economic driver. Last year, the industry’s economic impact totaled $32 billion and generated $1.2 billion in state and local taxes.
Key report findings include:
- The industry is large and diverse with nearly 52,000 employees earning average annual wages approaching $96,000 in 2021, 70% greater than the state’s private sector average.
- Though Wisconsin’s private sector declined by 2.7% from 2018 through 2021, the biohealth industry grew by 10.6%.
- Wisconsin matches the overall growth rates in the national biohealth industry and has outpaced the nation in two major subsectors seeing rapid expansion: Research, testing and medical labs; and drugs and pharmaceuticals. In addition, the state continues to have a highly specialized strength in medical device manufacturing.
- The industry’s expansion in Wisconsin is exciting and generally broad based. Underlying the top-line industry and subsector growth has been a host of both corporate expansions and investments in Wisconsin facilities and capabilities.
Our economic development teams in Wisconsin and Iowa have experience working with the biohealth and bioscience sectors. Visit our biotechnology industry page for recent project news.