By Robert Weisman
CHICAGO – Mayor Rahm Emanuel, welcoming thousands of medical technology executives to his city, Tuesday suggested they spend as much money here as possible and consider setting up shop in the emerging local health care business hub.
“The medical technology industry in the Midwest is a juggernaut,” Emanuel told a breakfast meeting of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, or AdvaMed, a trade group for companies that make medical devices and diagnostics. “I want to reduce their radius from 400 miles to four miles. I want you to see Chicago in your future.”
Much of the area’s life-sciences industry is based outside the city, led by companies such as Baxter International Inc. in Deerfield, Ill., which recently unveiled plans to open a research center in Cambridge, Mass., and Abbott Laboratories in suburban North Chicago, Ill. But the mayor said Chicago is making a push to expand its own sector, inviting venture capitalists from both coasts to an upcoming forum and opening a health care business incubator downtown in the city’s historic Merchandise Mart.
Emanuel, a Democrat and former White House chief of staff, acknowledged that he had worked to pass President Obama’s health care overhaul, which is unpopular with many medtech executives because it includes an excise tax on medical gear. “I didn’t know if I should go into a witness protection program” before addressing the industry executives, he said in jest.
Noting that the AdvaMed gathering has been held in Washington, D.C., seven out of the past eight years – the lone exception was 2012, when it was held in Boston – Emanuel, who left the nation’s capital to return to his hometown of Chicago, said, “I want to thank you for moving your convention from D.C. … It’s good for your mental health.”
