Compliments of Upstate Business Journal & Jennifer Oladipo
Here’s what I was imagining at the end of January: You, now, breathing easier as omicron retreats into the realm of memory, no worrisome COVID variant in sight. We’re looking at each other going, “Wow, two years, can you believe it’s over?”
And, we’re thinking about all the folks who helped get us through. With SCbio’s annual conference scheduled for February 22-24, I started thinking again about all the homegrown life science organizations making a direct impact on the pandemic and our experiences of it. SCbio, the state’s life science trade organization, has an impressive list of these at https://www.scbio.org/cpages/schelps.
South Carolina has shown up in everything from testing (Abbott, Clemson University, Hoowaki) to treatment (Alcami) to remote care (ChartSpan) and protection (Humimic Medical, ZVerse). And then some. Years of background efforts were suddenly big news.
Seeing life sciences become consistent headline fodder has been a real trip. It reminds me of how business news leaped from back sections to front pages in the early 2000s, when mega-scandals rocked Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and others. Biz news got sexy. It was a permanent change.
I hope the boosted attention to life sciences is permanent, too. Yes, to celebrate, but also to stay educated about how the world works. I wonder how the past two years would have looked if we’d started out with a broader, realistic understanding of all the parts and pieces it would take to get to the other side.