Utah Claims Lead in Medical Manufacturing Concentration

The Economic Department Corporation of Utah (EDCUtah), a non profit organization that works with state and local government to drive economic growth, has reported research that show Utah has the highest concentration of medical device manufacturing firms per total number of companies in the state.

About 17 percent of all life-science companies in Utah are medical device companies (116 out of 600).

The state also leads the nation in the employment of medical device engineers and medical appliance technicians. Salt Lake City, the state’s capital, has the highest concentration of people working as biomedical engineers per total number of employed people, and the highest total number of medical appliance manufacturing technicians than any other city in the nation, according to EDCUtah.

“We beat Greensboro, N.C., and Boston, Mass. (second and third, respectively) with more than 30 percent higher employment, according to 2011 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,” said the EDCUtah researcher who compiled the data, Brigham Mellor.

He said the industry has “exploded” over the last few years in Utah. Since 2007, employment in medical device manufacturing has gone up in the United States 25.54 percent. In Utah, however, it has gone up a whopping 6,300 percent, according to EDCUtah’s figures.

“We don’t have the most medical device companies by number, we have the highest concentration,” Mellor explained to Orthopedic Design and Technology. “Think of it as though you were going to open a business. What is the likelihood that next door to your company you have a medical device manufacturer? In the state of Utah you are 400 percent more likely to have that happen than the U.S. average.”

Since 2007, companies leading the pack for most jobs created in Utah are Edwards Lifesciences Corp. with 1,272, Nelson Laboratories with 750, and Fresenius Medical Care with 700.

“I moved to Salt Lake City in 1973,” said Salt Lake City-based Medron Inc.’s president Ron Whortley. “At that time, the area was known to have more medical companies per population base than most states. Salt Lake City provides a good source of educated and motivated workers.”

Medron develops and manufactures disposable medical products, specializing in vascular-access products and ancillary items for catheter placement.