Fort Wayne, Ind. (July 28, 2022) – Indiana’s northeast region, an 11-county area* including Fort Wayne and Warsaw, saw healthcare and life sciences jobs grow by more than 11% between 2015 and 2020, outpacing overall private sector growth of 2 percent. The sector contributes a $16 billion annual economic impact and employs more than 48,000 people, according to a new report. The study from TEConomy Partners, ESSENTIAL: The impact of healthcare and life sciences sector in Indiana’s northeast region, examined the influence of decades of investments in the region as well as how the sector provides benefits to their other industries such as manufacturing, technology and retail.

In addition, average yearly wages in the healthcare and life sciences for northeast Indiana are nearly $68,000, nearly $25,000 above their private sector counterparts.

“The healthcare and life sciences sector is an important driver of northeast Indiana’s economy,” said Patty Martin, president and CEO, BioCrossroads. “With major hospital systems like Parkview Health and Warsaw’s Orthopedics Capital of the World, the region has a complete ecosystem that spans a range of activity from basic research to development and production of products to their distribution and delivery to patients.”

The report discusses not only the economic measures of capital expenditures, wages and jobs, but also analyzes the non-traditional impacts such as access to healthcare and its influence on economic development.

Key information from the report also includes:

  • Gross regional product for the life sciences and healthcare sector is $5.6 billion, second to the manufacturing sector which contributes $14.7 billion
  • The life sciences and healthcare sector includes nearly 50,000 jobs, compared to the manufacturing sector’s 90,000 jobs in the region
  • Life sciences companies employ approximately 11% of the regional manufacturing workers, nearly 10,000 jobs
  • Every $1 of goods and services produced by the healthcare and life sciences sector generates an additional $0.52 within the regional economy

The full report is available on the BioCrossroads website.

About BioCrossroads

BioCrossroads is Indiana’s initiative to grow, advance and invest in the life sciences, a public-private collaboration that supports the region’s existing research and corporate strengths while encouraging new business development.  BioCrossroads invests capital and provides support to life sciences businesses, launches new life sciences enterprises (Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, 16 Tech, Indiana Health Information Exchange, Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, BioCrossroadsLINX, OrthoWorx and Datalys Center), expands collaboration and partnerships among Indiana’s life science institutions, promotes science education and markets Indiana’s life sciences industry.

* For this report, the Northeast Region includes Adams, Allen, De Kalb, Huntington, Kosciusko, Lagrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley