Maryland?s new Life Sciences Advisory Board represents some of the “best and brightest” in the state, Gov. Martin O?Malley said as he named the board Friday, but among its 15 members, only three represent bioscience businesses and there are no venture capitalists.

Most of the appointees represent the world-famous public and private research institutions that employ half the 60,000 employees who work in the field, including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland and the National Institutes of Health. Those institutions get $7.2 billion in federal research and development dollars, the highest per capita in the nation.