New York’s public and private medical schools play an important role in the state’s economy, with a total estimated economic impact of nearly $35 billion, according to a new report , Shannon reports.

The analysis, which the Associated Medical Schools of New York commissioned and TEConomy Partners, LLC performed, examines the economic impact of AMSNY institutional expenditures, AMSNY institutions’ research performance, metrics and impacts and the functional mission-based effects of New York medical schools.

It found that AMSNY medical schools employ more than 62,000 faculty, researchers and staff, earning more than $12 billion in wage and benefits, with total operational expenditures of more than $19 billion. Those operations, the report noted, generated an additional $15 billion-plus in the New York economy, for a total economic impact of nearly $35 billion. The report further found that New York’s medical schools received more than $5 billion in research funding from the National Institutes of Health from 2018 to 2020.

Jonathan Teyan, the chief operating officer for AMSNY, told POLITICO that the report is similar to one published in 2010. AMSNY, he said, “wanted to take a sort of big picture look at where the medical schools fit in the state’s economy and employment.”

“We think that by seeing this, legislators, policymakers in Albany and around the state can really sort of have a tangible sense of what the schools are doing,” he said in an interview. “The other thing that we think is important, is that the state invests in the things that kind of drive the medical schools and, in particular, the biomedical research that the schools do.”