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Economic Impact

Impact on Georgia of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center

• The WHSC helps make Emory University the largest private employer in the 20-county metro Atlanta area and the second largest in Georgia.
• With $2.3 billion in operating expenses, the WHSC's annual economic impact on metro Atlanta is estimated at $5.5 billion.
• Emory opened the 120-bed Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital in the past year. A new Yerkes primate field station facility will be completed in 2009 and a new public health building in 2010. Construction planned for the future calls for added inpatient, outpatient, and research space, including expansion of facilities on Emory’s campus in midtown Atlanta.
• Emory is a member of the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), a partnership of business, research universities, and state government that fosters economic development. Through the GRA, the state invests in WHSC research in nanotechnology, molecular screening for new drugs, vaccines, cancer, AIDS, imaging, immunology, biomedical informatics, and neuropharmacology. 
• The WHSC received $387.5 million in sponsored research funds last year. Major recent federal grants include $28.5 million to lead a local component of the landmark National Children's Study, $13 million to study a key protein involved in chronic infectious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis, $7.4 million for colon cancer research, and $6 million to study environmental causes of Parkinson's.
• The WHSC is a leader in technology transfer, with 27 products in the marketplace and 12 more in human clinical trials. Emory has launched 46 start-up companies over the past decade, some with help from Emtech Bio, a biotech incubator developed with Georgia Tech.  
• Emory Winship Cancer Institute is a key participant in the Georgia Cancer Coalition, which invests in cancer research at Emory and works to make the latest advances in cancer care available to all Georgians. Winship also works with the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education to partner with community-based physicians to make more clinical trials of new treatments available to patients throughout the state.  
• In addition to the Winship Cancer Institute, Emory is investing in three other multidisciplinary centers of excellence (heart and vascular, transplant, and neurosciences) to integrate translational research and teaching with patient care and to centralize all services based on patient-focused needs.
• The Emory Vaccine Center is one of the largest academic vaccine centers in the world, with scientists working on vaccines for AIDS, malaria, hepatitis C, avian flu, and other diseases. Emory’s Hope Clinic, which conducts clinical trials for promising vaccines, is part of the country's premier networks for vaccine and prevention trials for infectious diseases. 
• Emory is the lead partner in the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute, an NIH-funded collaborative created to increase availability and enhance efficiency of clinical trials for patients. 
• The Center for Health Discovery and Well-Being in the Emory-Georgia Tech Predictive Health Institute is currently studying healthy participants to determine disease risk and predict health outcomes.
• The WHSC helps lead Emory's Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, created to improve Emory’s ability to deliver a coordinated and effective response to catastrophic events. 
• Emory provides medical direction of Grady Health System's Ponce de Leon Center, one of the largest, most comprehensive AIDS treatment centers in the country. Emory is also a primary site in the nation's premier NIH-funded AIDS clinical trials network. 
• WHSC's physicians provide $29.2 million annually in charity care through Emory Healthcare and another $21.4 million in uncompensated care at Grady Memorial Hospital. Through Emory-Children's Center, Emory is the preeminent provider of specialty care to indigent children in Georgia.