Mainebiz

V I E W P O I N T S W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 3 M A R C H 4 , 2 0 2 4 Featured @ Mainebiz.biz For a daily digest of Maine's top business news, sign up for the Mainebiz Daily Report at mainebiz.biz/enews Get all the news every day at Mainebiz.biz or by signing up for the Daily Report and Real Estate Insider Newsletters. Here is the top Mainebiz content from Feb. 13-27: 1. Massachusetts hotelier Giri adds two Ogunquit properties to Maine portfolio 2. Two Maine restaurants bask in national spotlight 3. 'Bandit' and his legacy get Valentine's Day love from Portland businesses 4. Sugarloaf opens West Mountain terrain as part of resort's $104M expansion 5. Pumped up on heat pumps: Maine leads the nation on installations 6. Covetrus will pay $23.5M to settle criminal charge of animal drug misbranding 7. A year after fire, Gifford's Ice Cream resumes in-house production 8. Have you considered using a heat pump in your home or business? (poll question) 9. A Valentine's Day gift: Veteran wins contest for home in Bangor development 10. With final touches, Northern Light prepares to open $27M 'modernized' Greenville hospital P ROV I D E D P H OT O / DA I G L E C O M M E R C I A L G RO U P I N C . 1 bernsteinshur.com Meet Christina. A former biomedical researcher, Christina puts her industry knowledge to work, representing life sciences and biotechnology companies both inside and outside of the courtroom. We're attorneys. But we're people first. Christina Ferrari, Attorney and Shareholder From the Editor P eople outside of Maine tend to think of our econ- omy as built around lobstering or logging. And those sectors are certainly part of the economy. But, as this issue of Mainebiz shows, the economy also benefits from life sciences, biotech and innovation. e life sciences industry has a $2.2 billion impact on Maine. Some 9,500 life sciences jobs have been created, according to the Bioscience Association of Maine. Perhaps more significantly, those jobs pay an average of $108,000 a year. In the past five years, the increase in life sciences jobs in Maine has outpaced the other five New England states. If you had to name a company in this space you might first think of IDEXX Laboratories, but there are nearly 500 firms in the life sciences industry in Maine. Our cover story, by Senior Writer Renee Cordes, looks at how startups in the life sciences and bio- health field are hustling to raise money. e story starts on Page 14. A feature on how AI is used by the medical field in Maine, written by Senior Writer Laurie Schreiber, starts on Page 20. Also in this issue, we include the annual issue of Innovation Hub (formerly known as Startup Hub). is year we expanded the concept to look at how innovation takes root in Maine. Peter Van Allen pvanallen@mainebiz.biz Startups, innovation and life sciences to break a stereotype T O T H E E D I T O R Good work on the recent article about Maine energy resources [in the Feb. 19 Energy/Environment focus], but the short article describing the source of Maine's electricity misrepresents the structure of the indus- try. The chart in the story is titled "Where Maine gets its electricity (2022)," and it shows the mix of generation resources in Maine. However, the in- state generation mix does not represent the source of electricity used in Maine. Simply put, generation and energy are separate things. Maine consumers get their electricity supply from the New England market, so it would be more appropriate to reference the information available from the ISO-NE. For example, it is incorrect to suggest that none of the electricity used in Maine "comes from nuclear power." Similarly, it is incorrect to suggest that wind energy resources supplied 23.3% of the electricity used in Maine in any given year. As presented, this article contributes to the misconception that Maine or any New England state operates independently of the regional market. You could better serve your readers by making clear the distinction between the privately owned generation resources operating in Maine and the actual generation resources that sup- ply the New England market, because that is where Maine consumers get their electricity. — John Carroll Former employee of Central Maine Power and Avangrid Board member, E2Tech

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