I was referring to Montreal, as there were a lot of biotech labs at the time.

I recall none of them paid above 35k$ at the time, which was the same as one would be paid handling phone support for telecoms.

This was 15 years back so things may have changed.

Not who you are replying to, but in my mind, the only two "hotbed" cities in the US that I can think of are Boston and San Diego.

Bay area (Emeryville and East Bay are pretty interesting, in addition to South SF), and Research Triangle Park (North Carolina). Seattle a bit.

Minneapolis has one of the largest biotech&medical device sectors in the US as well.