A couple of major deals, especially in health information technology, helped push investment way up last year – to a total of $398 million.
"This was Northeast Ohio’s best year for biomedical capital by a factor of two," said Aram Nerpouni, head of BioEnterprise, the Cleveland development organization that conducted the study.
Cleveland ranked second for investment among Midwestern cities, just trailing Minneapolis by $5 million. Nerpouni said that city has an edge because the big medical device maker Medtronic is headquartered there.
Ohio led Midwestern states.
Nerpouni said Cleveland’s strengths are its well-known institutions, like the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, and Case Western’s medical school and biomedical engineering program.
He said the state’s tech industry development fund, Third Frontier, also helps.