Biotech and health care industry leaders yesterday warned that pressures to control health care costs under state law and Obama­care could have a chilling effect on innovation in the Hub.

The fear is that health care providers and insurers will try to trim costs by choosing­ lower-priced treatments instead of newer therapies that may be more effective, but also more pricey.

“Nobody in this room, I don’t think, is against evolving­ our model and making it more efficient. But the path to get there is going to lead to very, very bad consequences if we’re not careful,” Geoff MacKay, president and CEO of the Canton company Organogenesis, said at a Massachusetts Biotechnology Council event yesterday.

Organogenesis laid off research scientists last year after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided to pay less for the company’s wound-healing treatment, Apligraf.

Federal and state regulators are pushing the health care industry toward new payment models that reward providers for keeping costs down by keeping patients healthy. MacKay said uncertainty about the future of health care payments is trickling into the research sector.

“The cost to get (a new treatment) approved is significantly higher from a regulatory point of view,” he said. “And if you invest the time and the money and take the risk, if there’s a precarious reimbursement setting, the whole equation is in jeopardy. Innovation is in jeopardy.”

MassBio President Robert Coughlin echoed those concerns, telling the Herald, “We need to develop policies that won’t hinder innovative products.”

Massachusetts has about 56,000 workers in bio­pharma, but employment growth in the sector has fallen behind other research hubs, according to MassBio.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh told the crowd he would work to support the biotech industry’s growth in Boston’s Innovation District, but also in the city’s Dudley Square and Mattapan neighborhoods.

Walsh added that he would take a regional approach to growth.

“If one of the other cities­ or towns is able to grow their industries, it helps us all,” he said.

“I’m not going to look to Cambridge and Somerville and say, ‘OK, we’re going to try to move businesses over here.’ I’m going to look at how do we attract more businesses.”