It’s tempting for Bay Staters to engage in a bit of schadenfreude when reading about the horrible economic conditions in Florida (read George Packer’s excellent “The Ponzi State,” in The New Yorker, even if you have to beg a subscriber for a copy, or see foreclosure rates here). But the laughter may be short-lived if the Sunshine State actually does come up with a way to diversify its economy beyond real estate and tourism — especially if it targets our own little magic-bullet industry. William Haseltine reports in the Atlantic online:

Florida has decided to make a Texas-style bet on biotechnology. The strategy: entice world-class centers of biomedical research to establish local campuses. The Scripps Research Institute, where I am an adjunct professor, was the first taker: the La Jolla-based Institute was promised more than $500 million in state and county funds to launch a campus near Palm Beach. After several years of intense public discussion, a site was selected in Jupiter. The new campus was inaugurated on Thursday, a beautiful state-of-the-art biomedical research facility that will house over 600 researchers.

Florida doesn’t have our world-class universities, but biotech companies may prefer its good weather — and suddenly affordable housing.